I gather that the new Star Wars movie just released is a phenomenon not only because it’s good, but because it is the first new film in the series to advance the story in quite some years; recent “new” Star Wars movies were prequels to the original film and its several sequels. (I’m not positive about this – haven’t been paying close attention and don’t have time to look it, so don’t fan-squish me if I’ve got it wrong…)
I bring this up, both to check the “pop culture zeitgeist reference” box for this installation of Water Daily, and because it’s what comes to mind as I approach the prologue to John’s Gospel.
Yes, next Sunday is the first Sunday in the (ahem, 12-day) season of Christmas, and as always the gospel reading appointed is this passage that opens John’s Gospel. And where Luke and Matthew begin their gospel accounts with the birth of Jesus, and Mark just jumps in thirty years later when Jesus begins his public ministry, John goes deep into the pre-history. Deep, way deep, to infinity and beyond. “In the beginning,” he begins, and by that he means before everything. Before anything was, when there was only God, God had a thought and it issued forth as a word, a word with the power of genesis.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.
Before we get to the manger and the animals, the shepherds and the angels, the magi and the evil king, before we even get to Mary and her stranger-than-fiction pregnancy, we have this: a word. Not just any word: The Word. God’s Word – and God’s word is more than words. God’s word has the power to make real what did not exist before. God’s word is active, life-making. God’s word is creative, world-making.
How many eons did that Word exist before the time came for him to be given human life, to enter human history? And why did he come into visible being that night in Bethlehem?
There are more questions than answers. I only want us to hold this thought as we make our own journey to the manger this year: that the One whose birth we celebrate was the One who gave birth to us.
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