John 1: In the Beginning
Thursday, August 22, 2024
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. (NRSV)
No matter how often we read these words they bring us new beauty.
Footnotes tell us that the writer lays out the themes that develop as the Gospel continues: life, light, truth, the world, testimony, the pre-existence of Jesus, the incarnate Logos who is God’s revelation and the expression of God’s love for us. When we think of the stories we hear and read in this Gospel, we know for a certainty that God is calling us to be diverse, to tend to that diversity and to place our hope in this diversity – because it is in this diversity that the Spirit manifests itself best.
The Word was first,
the Word present to God,
God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
in readiness for God from day one. (MSG)
God calls us to intimacy, and Jesus calls out this same petition in his brief life. God asks us to commune with one another in a way we think impossible, and we can only do this if we rely on Wisdom. This morning’s first reading was from Wisdom 3:1-12, The Hidden Counsels of God on Suffering. Looking at verse four of that reading we are reminded that our hope is what makes us immortal. This hidden counsel of God manifests itself in Jesus, the world’s only true hope.
In the beginning the Word already existed; the Word was with God, and the Word was God. From the very beginning the Word was with God. (GNT)
Jesus, the Suffering Servant, comes to us to serve – not to be served. And so must we serve rather than be served. No one has ever seen God except through Jesus Christ, the apostle John tells us; yet God speaks to each of us through Jesus. It is fitting that Jesus represents this hope of God. It is correct that we awake and rise each day to look to Jesus. It is right that we act and live in hope, for it is this hope that makes us immortal.
Adapted from a reflection written on September 20, 2007.
Image from: https://beithashoavah.org/in-the-beginning-logo/
The Noontimes 