Today is the First Sunday after Christmas as well as New Year’s Eve.
This is a time of endings and beginnings. The traditional gospel reading for today is the perfect musing for the final day of the year.
John 1:1-18
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 came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'") From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.
On this final day of 2023, many people are thinking about endings. My email is packed with “Year End Reviews,” and cable news is full of retrospectives and “looking back” stories. The close of the year prompts reflection on the previous twelve months, a summing-up of where we’ve been.
Today’s scripture reading, the preamble of John’s gospel, also gazes backward, but it asks us to consider a far-off, distant time — the “beginning”: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
Those are the two most beautiful sentences in the entire New Testament. The cadence, the economy of language, the sense of mystery — this poetic prose can literally transport one’s soul. So few words, a lifetime of wonder.
In the beginning … When was the beginning? What happened at the beginning? The beginning of what … or who?
The writer, with one brief phrase, begins the gospel with a literary allusion to the first passage in all of scripture, Genesis 1:
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
Indeed, the entire prelude of the gospel echoes Genesis. The “wind” of God can also be translated as “breath” or “spirit.” Both breath and spirit can be related to “word,” a divine utterance, or vocalization of spiritual wisdom. Of course, there’s light — that which was separated from darkness, and becomes stars, the Moon, and the Sun. Or, as John’s gospel says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
There are other allusions to creation as well. The first witness is John the Baptizer, the forerunner who calls people to God through water. And water is the other primal element in Genesis 1, present at the very beginning with light, and is formed into seas and rivers, the birthing place of “swarms of living creatures.” In Genesis 1, light and water separate from their opposites — darkness and land — in a dazzling, creative dance and become the sources for all of life.
Finally, in Genesis 1:27, God created human flesh:
So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
And so, too, John’s preamble: And the Word became flesh and lived among us.
Then comes the ending of the beginning in Genesis: God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there’s an ending of the beginning of John: From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. Very good … grace upon grace.
Matthew and Luke start their Jesus stories with birth narratives; Mark’s begins with the first actions in Jesus’ ministry. But John begins at the very beginning, before time, as things came into being, with the Word (breath) and Wisdom (spirit). This poetic gospel insists that the beginning of Jesus was before his enfleshment: The One in the Cradle is also the One at the heart of the Cosmos. The baby Jesus is the Cosmic Christ.
And the same God who brought creation from primeval chaos is, through the Christ, bringing new creation from the imperial chaos of this human-shattered world. The ever-creative God is still at work. And Jesus invites us to join in, extending his wounded hand drawing us into the dance.
John’s Christmas story is a creation story. God-with-Us is more than a story of a Savior and Liberator. It is the continuing story of the Ever-Creating One wooing us into wonder, love, justice, and the “very good” and “grace upon grace” that the universe holds. As it was in the beginning is now once again and always shall be. Glory surrounds us. Glory awaits. Glory is the work at hand.
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 came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
Welcome to the last day of the old year, the first day of new creation. Ending or beginning? I think of T.S. Eliot:
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
Alpha and Omega. We need light to show the way.
INSPIRATION
Good is the flesh that the Word has become,
good is the birthing, the milk in the breast,
good is the feeding, caressing and rest,
good is the body for knowing the world,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.
Good is the body for knowing the world,
sensing the sunlight, the tug of the ground,
feeling, perceiving, within and around,
good is the body, from cradle to grave,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.
Good is the body, from cradle to grave,
growing and aging, arousing, impaired,
happy in clothing, or lovingly bared,
good is the pleasure of God in our flesh,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.
Good is the pleasure of God in our flesh,
longing in all, as in Jesus, to dwell,
glad of embracing, and tasting, and smell,
good is the body, for good and for God,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.
— Brian Wren
With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning
so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible
— W.S. Merwin, “To the New Year”
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
― T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”
SOUTHERN LIGHTS: January 12-14, 2024, St. Simon’s Island, GA
Join us online (or in person!)
Our theme is Reimagining Faith Beyond Patriarchy and Hierarchy.
YOU ARE INVITED to join me and my friend Brian McLaren as we reimagine our faith beyond patriarchy and hierarchy in our interior lives, in our communities of faith, and in the Scriptures.
We’ve asked three remarkable speakers to take us through this journey: Cole Arthur Riley, Simran Jeet Singh, and Elizabeth “Libbie” Schrader Polczer (our “resident” Mary Magdalene guide!). Our special guest chaplain for the weekend will be the Rev. Winnie Varghese (St. Luke’s Episcopal, Atlanta). And you’ll be treated to the amazing music of Ken Medema and Solveig Leithaug and other surprise offerings!
IN PERSON (a few spots left) or ONLINE
INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION CAN BE FOUND HERE.
God is by all means Creator, calling the world into existence in every moment.
But God creates with the world, not independently of the world.
The world enters into something like a creative dance with God, emerging anew in every moment as it takes its past and God’s future into its becoming self.
— Marjorie Suchocki
This is so beautiful. Thank you.
Thank you Diana and Happy New Year.