Monday 19 June 2023

Psalm 111

Background

Yesterday we saw that when Jesus sent the 12 disciples on their first mission, as recorded in Matthew 10, he limited the scope of their activities to their fellow Jews. By the time this gospel, the fourth one, was written probably around AD 100, John was making it clear from his opening sentences that the good news was for Jew and Greek alike.

“In the beginning was the Word.” (v. 1) The opening of John’s Gospel echoes the opening of the Jewish creation story as found in the first chapter of Genesis. In the beginning, God spoke the words of creation, “Let there be…” – and there was! But 'the Word' as used by John here was a term familiar to Greek thinkers: it was logos, the word or reason of God, which in Greek philosophical thought was the power pervading all things and responsible for creation. By introducing Jesus as the Word, John was presenting the gospel in terms that Greeks could understand. In effect, he was speaking the language of his target audience.

John moves on from the idea of the Word and creation to the idea of light in the darkness, a contrast which is part of our general human experience. When I read “The light shines in the darkness” (v. 5) I remember a colleague in Nagasaki turning off all the lights in the chapel during an orientation weekend for new students, and using a candle to allow him to go up the steps to the lectern safely. The value of a single candle also became a very real experience for me when a typhoon took out the power lines and we were left without electricity for three days. The visible light of the silver lining of a cloud and the sparkle of sunlight on water have made me smile in the midst of sadness, and the 'light' of tiny positive developments have brought encouragement in difficult times.

Jesus the Word, Jesus the light. Whichever image speaks to us, John wants us to know that Jesus is God, and has come to make God known to us.

To Ponder:

• How can we 'speak the language of the target audience' and present Jesus in ways that are easy for those around us with no background of church or the Bible to understand?
• What experiences do you have of Christ being or giving light in the dark times of your life? What forms did that 'light' take?