In the Beginning

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

John 1:1-5

               Today we have two very interesting passages that talk about the beginning of the world.  We have this story in Genesis, which tells us so much more about God and the nature of creation than it does about the hows of creation.  We learn from this story that God is creative, that this is the very nature of God to create, to make new, to shape. We also learn that God has a vision before acting, and that the very images of God begin the process of creating.  We learn that God speaks and the world is created, that it is in speaking, or moving thoughts out of ourselves through words that creation happens.  We learn that God values the passing of time and chooses to mark it with days and nights, and that God sees value in both light and dark, in days and nights.  We see that God values life and delights in huge diversity, creatures of the sea, animals that fly, creatures of the land, with so many different types and kinds.  We learn that God wanted relationship and creatures called humans who could be companions and have genuine interactions with God, ones that God would recognize as reflecting Godself.  We hear that the plan was not for killing, even for food, in the original.  Instead, to all animals and people was given the grasses and the seeds and fruit. We see that the work of creating is God’s work and is important, but that rest is also important.  And finally and most importantly, we come to see that all of this was made supremely good.  That creation, that earth, that life, that all animals and plants and stars and the moon and sun: all are very, very good.  Original blessing: something much stronger, by the way than any kind of “original sin” because it comes from God-self.  We learn therefore to appreciate and value the beautiful and wondrous creation that God has made, to not take it for granted, to not abuse it or mistreat it, but to honor it as the very creation of our good and loving and awesome God.  

                Breathe that in!  The awe, the wonder, the amazement.  It is good.  You are good.  The earth is good.  We were made good by God’s Words, by God’s WORD.  And we have been gifted by our time here; our time of work and our time of rest.  We have been blessed by the beauty of relationships and connection to God and to all living things.  We are part of this wondrous and amazing creation!  In Isaiah God said it this way, “Be glad forever and rejoice in what I create… for I create my people to be a delight.”  I invite you to just sit with that for a moment, sit in the awe and wonder of what God has created just by speaking.

               And then we come to the second scripture, the passage from John, which also talks about creation, about the beginning of everything and the vision for who God is, who we are and who we are to be together.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word was with God in the beginning. Everything came into being through the Word, and without the Word nothing came into being.  What came into being through the Word was life, and the life was the light for all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light.”               This is such an incredible, beautiful passage.  But I want to start this section by asking you, what do you think this passage actually means?  Why “the Word”?  Just past this passage in John we learn that “the Word” is Jesus: Verse 14: The Word became flesh and made his home among us. “  But why?  How do you feel about this passage?

            As you saw during children’s time, charades, while a really fun game, can also be a really difficult or challenging game.  Especially when the phrases you are acting out include names, or places.  And what makes charades, or even games like Taboo hard is the limitation on our words, the words we can’t use, or the words we can’t say. 

           I think about Helen Keller.  She contracted scarlet fever when she was 20 months old and became both deaf and blind.  Because of this, her life became one of wildness, isolation and frustration.  When she was six, the family hired Anne Sullivan who came and began to teach Helen sign language into her hand in order to teach her how to communicate with others.  It took a long time for Helen to even understand what Anne was trying to do.  But once she understood, her life changed completely.  Through communication – through words, though not “spoken” words they were still words, she was able to earn a college degree and become a successful lecturer.  More importantly, she was able to have relationships with other people, lifelong friendships, connections.

           Communication is never easy.  We misunderstand one another so often.  We mishear, mis-interpret, misunderstand.  We misread people’s body language, or people’s intent.  We mis-speak or phrase or frame things in ways that are sometimes easy to misunderstand.  Those misunderstandings are the primary cause of human distress, conflicts, problems.  And the only solutions to those miscommunications are more words, are more communication, are intentional talking. 

           We also at times misuse our words for bad.  Words can be weapons.  While words create, they create relationships, they create dynamics, they create our world, the ways we use our words sometimes create in negative or harmful ways.  We can create relationships in need of healing, or dynamics that are negative.  We can bully each other, put each other down, destroy egos and community with our words.  We can do so much damage if we are not intentional, graceful and loving with our words. 

           Our words can also be simply confusing and unclear, especially for children.  Someone passed on to me this story, apparently from the movie, My Queen: “A visiting aunt, who is a nun, gave her little niece communion. It was basically just for fun, playing. She put the wafer on the child’s tongue and said, “Corpus Christi”. The kid asked what that meant. The aunt replied, “The Body of Christ.” Alarmed, the kid made a sour face and violently spit it out. In the next scene, though, the kid was baptizing her pet, and because she didn’t know the Latin that her aunt used, she spoke funny gibberish (shubba dubba…).”  We know this is a true story.  Our kids do not always understand our words, and frankly neither do the adults in our lives.

          And yet, despite the possibilities for errors and misunderstandings and harm of our words, still we return to this passage: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word was with God in the beginning. Everything came into being through the Word, and without the Word nothing came into being.”

      The word “WORD” in the Bible means more than language.  As one commentator said it, “logos, is a rich and nuanced word, meaning mind or rationality, but also speech or communication…. In Jesus, God speaks God’s mind.”  (Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary - Feasting on the Word – Year C, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration.)  The mind that God speaks is creation, is creative, is love, is grace.  All was made through the Word.  But it is more than that.  It is also revelation and reconciliation.  Revelation is a revealing, an opening, a showing us who God is.  Reconciliation is a healing, a coming to understand one another, and a coming through that understanding to love one another and heal the breaches between us.  All of this is part of “word”.  A Word that speaks truth and opens up to us what we cannot see.  And a Word that brings understanding and healing, opening us to understand that which we do not understand in one another.  All of this is encompassed in the “WORD”.

This Word existed, we are told, from the beginning.  We knew God and God knew us.  God created through words.  God SAID “let there be light” and there was.  God SAID, “Let there be a dome…and it happened that way.”  “God SAID, ‘Let the waters swarm…”  “God said, “let the earth produce…” and thus it was.  God SAID, and it happened.   The WORD that was with God and the WORD that was God created it all with words, with THE Word.  Nothing and no one existed outside the word of God.  Nothing and no-one existed outside the creative, life-giving purposes of the Word.  Nothing has existence outside of the WORD.  It is the Word that tells us who, what and when because it is the Word that created who, what and when. 

In C.S. Lewis’ book, The Magician’s Nephew, Aslan created the new world by singing.  He brought into being the world, all it’s creatures, all it’s form through singing, speaking.  But unlike what CS Lewis said, this passage from John says that the Word is Jesus and that Jesus, as the Word, is God.  So the Words made the world, but the words themselves are not the world – instead God is the Word that made the world. 

It was the Word that created.  And then it was the Word that reconciles, reveals and redeems.  With the birth into this world of the Word, our knowing God, our understanding of God is different and everything else is different too.  Jesus as the Word then is the embodiment of revelation and reconciliation.  He is the embodiment of the creative energy that makes everything new, that reveals who God is, and that reconciles us to one another.

 When I think of words, I think first and foremost about communication.  And the key aspect of communication is that it only happens in community, in relationship.  This is, again, a strong statement about God as community and relationship, God as the author of community and relationship, and relationship being central.  In the beginning was God and the Word, and yet they are one.  They are relationship, they exist in relationship, and they create through relationship, through Words, through the Word, through speaking.

  So what is the message in all of this?  First, that God created and continues to create.  God creates through Words, through the Word, through communication with us and with all of creation.  God continues to speak, to reach out to reveal and reconcile.  That is God’s nature as shown to us through the creation and through Jesus.  We are created in and for community, for connection.  And that community and connection happens as our words of love and creation happen.  We are made in God’s image, called to use words to create, to build, to reimagine, to reveal just as God used the Word for the same purpose. 

               Thanks be to God.  Amen.