The Word Becomes Flesh

John is my favorite gospel, by far, and for good reason. I think now, looking back, when I was instructed to read it during my high school years about a decade ago, that it very well may have had a forming effect on my faith.

The more I read John, the more positively earth shattering it becomes. Tonight I realized something others have probably seen countless times before me - that the mysteries of the universe, and the reality of our God, are held within the beautiful first chapter of the gospel of John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him, was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

I believe with all my heart and soul that the entire course of history is written in this verse.

There is a beginning to history, in which God speaks into us as created beings through the insertion of his Word as our authority and father, his spirit through the animation of the universe, and his light, as our hope in Christ. More important than the beginning is the end, which is never ending, because the darkness has not overcome the light.

Most importantly, though, is the middle. Because this is where we are. Let me be redundant for emphasis - we're in the middle. We didn't start it, and we can't chose when to finish it. We're in the middle trying to stake our claim somewhere. And our lives, middlers, are not in our flesh. They never were and never will be. Our lives are therefore not where we would place them. They are not in our bodies, the temples where our lives might seem to reside. They are not in our brains, where we feel pain, pleasure, and seek to form our assumed identity.

Our lives are safe within him, in his word and his light, which, into perpetuity, the darkness has not overcome.