In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
In a particular way, the human race was designed with a capacity for God. We were creatures who spoke words, created by the Word himself. Our minds were enlightened by reason from the source of reason and light. Our lives were unique among the life created by God in that we had the ability to know the truth and to love the good. Only because we were created to share in the light that originated from a source higher than ourselves could we truly trust that light. Creatures that appeared through the product of chance and circumstance could never assume that what they believed to be true was actually anything more than a useful fiction. Even that it was useful was not something that could be strictly proved.
What came to be through him was life,
and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
The darkness certainly tried to overcome the light. But it could not overcome it because it could not comprehend it. The light meant more than mere reason, but not less. Darkness always meant some failure of reason, some unwillingness to see the truth, and a failure to order choices on the basis of one's origin and destiny. Succumbing to such temptations always meant embracing darkness in the sense of an unwillingness to look to the light. When Adam and Eve first bought into the lies of the serpent they caused their minds and those of their offspring to be darkened. They became easier for the enemy to fool and even began to desire to be fooled. They developed a tendency that drew them further downward toward darkness and sin. The more people embraced the darkness the harder it became to extricate themselves.
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened (see Romans 1:21).
Fortunately, however, the darkness never overcame the light entirely. It could not erase the fact that humanity had been made by God and could not find fulfillment apart from him. Yet, clearly, we were not in a good place with darkness warping our very identities. We needed the one of was the source of our light to come and enlighten us once more. We could not fully escape it on our own. We needed one who was never subject to darkness, one who could himself see clearly, to come and set us free.
But to those who did accept him
he gave power to become children of God,
The Word did not force anyone to receive the light he came to bring. Even his own people to whom he came were free to not accept him. They had the power to refuse to look at him closely, lest in looking, they recognize that he was all he claimed to be. The Scriptures had prepared them to receive him. But they were free to twist the interpretation of the Scriptures to bolster their own position and to undermine that of Jesus. Relationship could not be forced. There could not be true conversation or communion with the Word, in the sense that he desired, if that was imposed externally. Yet for those who did accept him we see that the plan of the Word was not for a merely distant relationship or a disinterested conversation. He desired to share the life of his own divine family with us, giving us "power to become children of God". Only in this relationship could we experience the fulfillment of the desire with which he himself created us. Only in this light could our lives or anything else make sense.
And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us,
Previously God's presence had been restricted and inaccessible to most. But when the Word pitched his tent among us, as the tabernacle of the presence of God on earth, he closed the gap of the distance between himself and us in an instant. The darkness made us doubt the nearness of our God. But it was no longer possible for those who believed in Jesus to doubt that God was with us, for us, and not against us.
Jesus is the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, our origin and, God willing, our destiny. So it is fitting that on the last day of the year we continue to remember and draw strength from our redemption's beginning.
Vineyard Worship - Shine Jesus Shine
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