Charles L. Campbell in an article in Interpretation (49, no. 4, October 1995, pp. 394), writes, "Christmas Day is not a time for explanations and analysis in the pulpit." He was reflecting on John 1:1-14 and knew, I suspect, that the prologue from John entices preachers to analyze. The prologue to John is a theologically dense statement. It is filled with potent images and turns. It begs the church’s residential theologian to theologize. William Barclay, for example, spends 54 pages of his commentary on John on these 18 verses--virtually 1/5 of the entire space he dedicates to the first 8 chapters of John. But alas Christmas Day is not the day to do that--resist the temptation, stay away from the theology. People who come to church on Christmas day are feeling many things--sleep-deprived, sugar-coated, over-fed, out-spent, under-appreciated, and cloistered in nostalgia. Among the things people are unlikely to want to do on Christmas Day: figure taxes, fold laundry, decipher installation instructions and theological analysis.
Which is why pastors should have blogs--so they can get it out of their system. In this text from John we have several Christological themes woven together in what many people believe to be a beautiful tapestry (I am among those who believe this text is one of the most beautiful in the New Testament).
Here are the strands as I see theme: Jesus as the Word of God, the Incarnation, Jesus’s Pre-existence, Jesus as the Son of the God, Jesus as the Light of the World, Jesus’s role in creation, Jesus as the adoptive catalyst.
Jesus as the Word of God--In the beginning was the Word. Growing up, every time I heard the phrase, "Word of God" or "Word of the Lord" I thought people meant the Bible. Yet, when the Biblical writers used logos they probably were not making self-referential statements about the scripture they were writing. They meant something else. In the Greek text, the word for "Word" is Logos and almost anyone well tell you it’s a loaded word. The writers of the New Testament were influenced by both the Greek meanings for the word and also for the Jewish usage of terms. Here’s where it’s tricky. The New Testament was written by people living in a Hellenistic (Greek/Roman influenced) culture. They spoke and wrote in koine (common) Greek. However, they had a copy of the Jewish Scriptures (what we call the Old Testament) written in Greek. Called the Septuagint (abbreviated LXX). Many words that might mean one thing from a purely Hellenistic frame of reference (not that there really is anything that’s purely Hellenistic) might mean something else from a Jewish perspective.
Word of God from Jewish perspective. God’s word created the world and brought life. God’s word made covenants with the people whom God chosen through Abraham, delivered through Moses, united in David and re-established through Nehemiah. In the prophetic works, "Word of God" plays an important role. It is the most frequent opening for books of prophecy in the Hebrew Bible. In Hebrew "Word of God" is debar YHWH (more accurately, "Word of the LORD"). It is used 242 in the Old Testament and 225 of these occur in prophetic writing. God’s word is not always a fixed statement which cannot change. God’s word is eternal (Isaiah 40:8). But God’s word is also dynamic. God could change, intensify, cancel God’s word. NOTE: That’s God’s ability not ours. God’s word is expressed as God’s life force at work to shape God’s people.
In a Greek concept, logos refers to logic or rational thought. It expresses the highest form of reasoning. Greek’s tended to separate mind from Body. But in Logos you have the combination of both. We speak our mind but speaking is a physical act as the air which gives us life is used to express our thoughts.
So too, the idea of Christ as the logos of God conveys both the sense that in Christ God continued God’s plan for humanity--begun with creation and also that Jesus represented the mind and will of God in physical form.
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