The Word became flesh: looking again at Jesus IV

A sermon from John 1.1-14: Part IV
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. From the start, before anything else, God is vocal. He is expressive. He relates to one other than himself, and yet one who is so intimately tied to him as we are to words we breathe out. Sometimes we can say that we are our words; when my words threaten, or promise, or apologise, I threaten, promise, apologise. This Word is God himself in action. Yet this action is happening even before there is anything made to act upon. God in himself is dynamic, is expressive, is communicative. He is relational from the start.

Now already, one verse in, we face a threat to our comfortable ideas of God. We like to think of God as beyond words, as indescribable, as so great and mysterious and other and beyond, that he is safely unknowable. But in the beginning God put himself into words, he articulates himself. He is not silent. He is not beyond speech. He is dangerously discussable.

Yet this is also generosity. We come to know someone else primarily through their words. Tim will look at this in more depth next week, but from the start, even right back in the beginning, God gives himself in his Logos, his Word. He opens himself up for relationship, for a conversation. In the beginning was the Word. We are being invited into a conversation we did not begin. We are being invited, individually, communally and as the human race, into a conversation we did not begin - a conversation with the one who made us, who made all things, who made us and all things by speaking, and now invites us to converse with him.

And here is another shock to our idea of God. God is on the front foot; he takes the initiative; he takes the first step towards us. He starts the conversation, before we were even around, in the beginning was the Word. We might sometimes think of him like the teacher in a busy classroom, whose attention can only be gained by our being either exceptionally good, or exceptionally bad. We might think of him as the distant father, working into the night in his study. If we want to talk with him, we need to gather up our courage, marshall our excuses, thicken up our skin, creep to the door and knock, hoping our interruption will not be too much of an annoyance. But no, he’s not the overstretched teacher in a chaotic classroom or the distant father locked working in the study. He starts the conversation. In the beginning was the Word – before we’ve had a chance to make up our minds, to do anything good or bad to get his attention, before we can draw breath, in the beginning was the Word. This is a gift, a free gift we couldn’t earn and which we have no right to ignore as though God were merely a unwanted phone call to offer us a new mobile deal, or a piece of spam email promising to unbelievably enlarge our wallets or body parts. What a gift: God speaks to us. Are we listening?
Fifteen points for guessing the Sydney location.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X.