Holy Nights
John 1: 1-18 (after a translation by Craig Wiggins)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God.
This was in the beginning with God.
Everything came into being through the Word, and without it was not anything made that was made.
In the Word was life, and the life was the light of humankind.
And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John.
He came as a witness, to bear witness to the light, so that through him all may find faith. He was not the light, but a witness to the light, for the true light that enlightens every human being was coming into the world. It was in the world, and the world came into being through it, but the world had not recognized it.
Into those who had recognized it the light had come, but those individuals did not take it in. But all who did take it in received authority to become children of God. Those who trusted in its name are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of the human beings, but are born of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among (in) us.
And we beheld its revelation, the revelation of the only begotten son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John bore witness to Him and cried out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘After me comes one who was before me, for he is the very first’.” For out of his fullness, we have received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth have come about through Jesus Christ.
Until now human senses never beheld God. The only begotten Son, who was within the Father, has become the guide to this beholding.
Holy Nights
January 1, 2012
John 1: 1-18
Words contain a great mystery. They are handed down to us by our parents. Words are a legacy. They are the memory of how the world is structured, structured with things, with beings, with actions, with qualities. Words are also the garments of thoughts. Thoughts not only reflect the past; they can also create the future.
This creating power of the Word manifested in the ancient past as the creation of the world. The Word’s first creation: Let there be light. And the Word became light.
The creative Word is still resounding as a sounding power, creating the future. Now it says: ‘Let there be love’. But unlike the first creation, this resounding of the Word requires our human cooperation. Human beings must hear it; human beings must take its creative power into themselves.
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| Roland Tiller |
Christ Jesus is the prototype of the human being who takes into Himself the divine force of creating love and shines it forth as a revelation. Through Christ, through Christ living in us, working in us, God’s grace shines forth into the world. Through Christ living and working in us, the truth of human creation reveals itself, as it says in Psalm 82: ‘I have said you are ‘gods’. The poet David Whyte expresses it thus:
You were there in the beginning
you heard the story, you heard the merciless
and tender words telling you where you had to go.
….
you couldn't live
so close to the live flame of that compassion
you had to go out in the world and make it your own
so you could come back with
that flame in your voice, saying listen...
this warmth, this unbearable light, this fearful love...
It is all here, it is all here.**
*John 10:34-37 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside—what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?
Jesus’ reference is to Psalm 82: ‘God presides in the great assembly; he renders judgment among the “gods”…. “I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’
**David Whyte “In the Beginning” in Fire in the Earth
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