For Sunday, January 4, 2014 – John 1:1-18
“In the beginning,” John says, “was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Like a minstrel, John sings out across the ages, gathers us again at the first fires of creation and draws us into the unfolding story: “What has come into being through the Word was life, and the life was the light of all people….” We are invited to step into the marvels of this tale of a Word who “was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.” The curiousness increases. “He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.”
Inwardly I see us as children, eyes round with wonder at this ancient story made new. Our beginning-of-the-world friend, a Word, comes to us, dwells among us, and has ways beyond our ways. The child gets it that we all need a Word beyond words to say what cannot be fully said, to help us learn the fullness of life, of ourselves. But will we accept such a Word? Will we accept this strange fullness of life the Word brings? This human-divine one is Life beyond our understandings of life, Light beyond light, the Word that infuses all our words. The divine Word became a human word, which means our own words now have great potential for healing and hope, wonder and light. Even more, our ordinary lives can express what feels ultimately too deep for words.
Haven’t you noticed that in times of deep feeling, whether sorrow or joy, ecstatic gain or loss, we sometimes cannot speak? The words dash away, dive into the crevices of our minds, and we are left in awkward silence. We can barely muster a simple, “I don’t know what to say, I have no words.” It seems a holy paradox that in our wordlessness, the Word is very near. The Word that existed before words existed speaks through our lack of words. This is the Word that longs to quiet the storms within and among us, light up our darkness, stir our complacency, bring us back fully to ourselves. The Word longs to be in conversation with us; not get our opinions on every subject, be impressed by our clarity and wit, but just hang out with us, dwell among us. The Word has come to teach us our mother tongue, our native language—the language of compassion and fearless encounter, the language of love.
