This Sunday marks the beginning of Ordinary Time in the Anglican church; not ordinary as in boring but ordinary as in God is with us all the time and not just in the extraordinary times. So it seems rather odd that the gospel reading for today is one which takes us right back to the heart of the major festival we have just finished celebrating: Christmas.
The ‘In the beginning was the word…’ passage from John 1, is one of the more difficult and complex passages to comprehend. John was quite the philosopher! And yet it is read at the culmination of our Carol Services and at other times throughout the feast of Christmas. However, we are given 2 other passages for today, a piece of poetry from Proverbs 8, and a piece of teaching from Paul’s letter to the Colossians. Three very different styles of writing but each of them take us back to our origins, to our very foundations, to the creation of the world: ‘In the beginning’.
In the beginning, when God created…. (Genesis 1:1)
Wisdom, our poet from Proverbs reminds us that,
Ages ago I was set up at the first….(Proverbs 8:23)
Paul, in his letter to the Colossians teaches us about the firstborn of all creation,
he himself is before all things and in him all things hold together…(Colossians 1:17)
And John our philosophical gospel writer tells us that
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. (John 1:1-5)
As Christians we have a tendency to think that our faith begins at Christmas, that the birth of Jesus, God’s Son, is the inaugural moment of our faith, and yet these three passages placed together remind us that our roots are very firmly in the Jewish faith, that Jesus himself was born a Jew and that therefore our faith is as old as time, and not just a couple of thousand years, for each of the three passages speak of the same being: Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God. However, Tom Wright declares that the passage from Colossians, especially read together with the other two passages create
some of the most explosive new thinking the Jewish tradition ever produced (Tom Wright)
Maybe it is because of this explosive nature that many of Jesus’ Jewish brethren were unable to grasp his true identity. Although Jesus fulfilled many Jewish prophecies in his actions, and in his teachings declared his true identity, he is rejected time and again. As Christians we can look back and wonder how ignorant the people were, not to be able to see what was before their very eyes, not to see what they had been longing and hoping for; and yet in so many ways we are repeating this part of history. As a ‘Christian Nation’ we often get upset when we are told that we can no longer celebrate Christ-mas because we may upset other faiths, and that for matters of political correctness our seasonal festivities will be referred to as ‘winter-mas’. and yet our own celebrations can often have nothing to do with the true ‘meaning of the season’. We can’t wait to throw up our decorations, but it seems that we throw out the baby Jesus with the used wrapping paper and empty packaging as soon as Boxing day is upon us.
Knowles reminds us that
a few believe in him and he makes them God’s children.
This, I think is the reason why the passage from John is so important for us to be reminded of at this time of year, that although we may have packed away the decorations on Boxing Day, or 12th Night, or even held onto them until Candlemas last week, Jesus should never be packed away. The mystery we delight in at Christmas, the manger we dare to place our hope in, the candle that brightens our path and reminds us that the light of the world is with us, all these are not to be packed away, these are to be carried with us through the year, these are to be nurtured and allowed to grow and develop throughout our daily, ordinary lives.
But there is another reason why we are being asked to think about the beginning and the firstborn, and that is because already our thoughts are turning from Christmas to Easter (indeed the shops ever eager to rush us on from one thing to the next have had Cadbury’s Creme Eggs in stock since advent).The Hebrew word for ‘beginning’ also means ‘sum total’, ‘head’, ‘first fruits’ and Paul reminds us that Jesus is the ‘first born from among the dead’, Paul’s teachings take us forward to the joy of resurrection. The Hebrew for ‘in’ can also be translated as ‘through’ or ‘for’, and so the passage from Paul’s letter to the Colossians can be summarised as
Christ is the one in, through and for whom creation and redemption are accomplished; he is the start, the sum total, the head.
This Christmas I hope that you were able to grasp something of the light and love that God is and has for us, and that you have been able to engage with him through his son, the one laid in a manger at his birth, the one that each and everyone of us are made in the image of. I hope that you may have caught something of his glory, something of his true worth and weight, and that as we begin to travel towards Easter, that sense of glory will travel with you in your hearts and souls.
Some Questions:
- When do you take down your decorations, and why?
- What was the most ‘glorious’ moment of Christmas for you this year?
- What does to mean for Jesus to have been present at ‘the beginning’…
- Was Jesus born in the image of humankind, transformed into humanity from deity?
- If so, what does this mean for us as we look forward to Easter?
- As we turn our thoughts from the stable to the cross, how are we going to mark lent this year, as a group? As individuals? Is there anything we would like to be accountable to each other for during the Lenten season?
A prayer:
Sovereign God –
mighty and mysterious, immortal, invisible –
as we come together in your presence we do not simply want to go through the motions of worship, to do what’s expected of us;
we want to see Jesus, recognising him at work in the world and involved in our lives, present and active through his Spirit.
Broaden our vision and enlarge our understanding, that we might glimpse more of his grace and truth, love and light, power and glory, and so catch clearer sight also of you, our eyes opened to your awesome majesty through him. Amen
(Nick Fawcett)
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