John, the one who claims to be Jesus’ favorite, tosses out some mind stretchers to begin his serious gospel that we associate with Christmas tide.
In the Beginning was The Word. he wrote. Before there was anything there was The Word. Before the “beginning” – which scientists say was 15 million years ago – The Word already was. It may have been an abstract thing, an idea, a thought that flew out of God’s mind, a supernatural object in the void. Was this Word the indescribable unbounded force we have called God that occupied every centimeter of existence – or some bearded golden king sitting on a giant throne in a sea of blue giving orders like a dictator Where did all this originate in John’s creative mind, the same brain that put together the book of Revelation ? He obviously was familiar with the first chapters of Genesis. Even in the Jewish Kabbalah, God’s divine speech was referred to as the tool of creation.
God’s divine speech, the Word, was what he used to make something out of nothing. In Genesis he spoke everything into creation. I wonder if it was a tornadic sound, a scream, something so loud and explosive that it caused what scientists have named the Big Bang? Apparently earth began in all its primitive possibilities when God’s sound set up Day one of Creation Time. Not until the 20th century did people question the origin of the universe – and it was Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, published in 1916, that suggested that the universe had not always existed. A Roman Catholic priest, Georges Lemaitre and Edwin Hubble discovered that the Universe is expanding. Try as the physicists did to hang on to the eternity of the universe concept, in 1964 the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation gave support to the idea of the Big Bang theory. It upset Christians, anxious to hold on to the biblical account of creation. But the Big Bang concept – that all space, time and energy came into existence together in that bang – jelled beautifully with God’s Word in Creation. As one Christian theologian stated, “I am not necessarily opposed to the Big Bang Theory, Rather, I know who banged it.”
I wonder what God was doing before He got the urge to create our world. He wasn’t alone. Even in this auspicious beginning, in that creation blast, Jesus and the Holy Spirit were already there. And with the Word complete in its fullness, God gave the order for time, space, matter and light which came into life in one day.
Was this the original debut of sound and language? Was it so powerful that a single word could create the universe, the world, the setup in space that we have today? Was this WORD directed only at our little ball of earth – or was it for all that existed, near and beyond, all that is or was or ever could be?
My question is if God put animals, plants, humans and other things on Earth, was his focus, his domain just Earth or the entire Universe, which should have, one would think, received the same creatures. But scientists are unable to find similar life-bearing items on the other planets in our universe. Was only Earth an experiment?
I in my Eve-like curiosity, wonder, at the moment the WORD blew out of God’s mouth, who was listening, who heard it, who acted on it, or how did things of nature know what they were – moon, stars, water or seeds waiting in the wings of creation – there wasn’t even rock and soil in the beginning. So, what language did God use. Our sociologists imagine the original language of primitive man was a grunt – like Ugh. Umph. Aye. But in the creation story, God’s man and woman made of ribs and dust, knew a language. That’s how God warned them about the Tree of Life and talked to them as they walked through the beauty of Eden. Even the snake speaks and Adam and Eve understand. = a curiosity that hasn’t been resolved.
Be as it was, when God spoke, history began. John said, It just “WAS.” and it is a hard thing to grasp. We try to stretch our minds to think, Well, it had to come from something and if that was true, there was some inkling of history – the history of God before, who had the power of the Word. Ok. That’s as far as the elastic in my brain can stretch. When I try to think beyond its borders, I get nauseous.
It was really studying for a masters in art history and spending summers visiting cathedrals and museums in Europe that stirred up my unused faith and belief in 1980. I grew in awe of the great works of religious art, full of symbolism as they were and I began to see how fascinating, complicated and beautiful our religion had been throughout centuries. I was intrigued by the way artists symbolized The WORD . In Romanesque and Early Netherlandish art, in particular, in the Annunciation scenes, along with the Angel and Mary was usually the presence of the Word symbolized by the open book with pages blowing. A breath of a breeze stirred up the pages – and this was ascribed to the Holy Spirit bringing the Word. Often paintings hid subtle signs of Jesus’s history even when it was outlawed.
At his birth, Jesus gave a new kind of life to the WORD of which He had always been a part. When Jesus the Flesh, the man from Nazareth, the Son of God, appeared in the hills and waters of Galilee, He carried with him the power of That Word in action as he forgave sins, healed bodies and souls, illuminated truths, and granted mercy, grace, joy, love, freedom,salvation. He passed these word skills onto his disciples. So through the centuries, we have realized that our words are more important than we ever supposed. To claim “I believe”, for instance, marks the difference between life and death. Saying “Jesus is Lord” can mean we truly have the Holy Spirit in us,; and our words accrue dignity and gravity in conversations with Jesus called prayers. In Uruguay I watched two evangelical women shouting Jesus to exorcise evil out of men in prisons. A personal note, a simple letter I received from Mother Teresa a few months before she died, changed the direction of my spiritual journey. She wrote: Make it something beautiful for God. I ask our Lady to give you her heart so beautiful so full of humility and love, so that you may love Jesus as she loves – in everyone – first in your own. God Bless you.
Our lesson now is – we must watch our words. They have power, not only in our relationship with Christ but with each other. Each of us who commits to Christ is like a single Word going out to make meaning with the big sentence of life and faith. Therefore each word needs to be weighed before it is used. What we say can bring life or death to many. I remember in my hospital ministry to those with Ayds or terminal cancer, I learned never to say “I will see you tomorrow” if I didn’t plan to return “tomorrow.” It could make or break a person’s hope or spirit or will to live.
And we have the phenomena today of politically correct or incorrect. An example: A Texas restaurant posted a sign that read: Notice: this store is politically incorrect. We say Merry Christmas, God Bless America. We salute our flag and give thanks to our troops, police officers and fire fighters. If this offends you, you are welcome to Leave. In God we Trust. “ I like this menu.
Sadly, the worst abusers of the Word are Politicians. Donald Trump, like him or not, has done extreme damage to our system, our country and our respect in this world with those loose-lipped accusations and threats that he shoots out of his mouth to get attention, which the press happily gives him. He has made our nation and world more dangerous than ever for us who travel through and live in it because he has abused the power of the Word, and he knows he is doing that.
Think of the crusaders and fundamentalists who distort the Bible, which many call The Word of God, but it actually contains the Word of God. The Bible’s words have been maligned, twisted, cut apart and pasted together to support one’s opinions and prejudices so one looks holy, like Jesus.
Most disturbing is today we communicate through computers, laptops, ipads, iphones, neckphones, earphones, email, Twitters, Facebooks and texts. We don’t speak to each other face to face. Lies, bullying and deceptions are but a few easy touches of the keyboard. Often we say more than we need to say because the typing is easy and fast. Or we express feelings and truths by letting the coldness of electronics handle the hard parts. We spew out anger, opinions and orders on the keyboard, because we don’t want to deal with how these are received by or affect others , as we would know in face to face conversation. It’s easy to misread intention. So we have Emoji, cartoon images to put in our emails and texts to show our feelings without even employing Words. NO longer must a person give and receive the word. A machine does it all.
There is power in Words that marks our souls, our health and our sanity. Be cautious and consider the effects of what you are saying, even jesting, because if it hits the the recipient the wrong way, the damage cannot be erased from memory. A sloppy comment can torture the mentally ill or someone in the grasp of suicide. Instead, Let us use words to bless, to encourage, to pray, to give hope, to include and to love. Get acquainted with God’s Word in us, that same Word that was in the beginning and is still now and ever shall be. Use it, please, for goodness and God’s glory. Amen.