Jack Hardaway
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Words.
They hold the world together.
Words build things. They make things happen.
Words also destroy, words inflicted or misspoken or withheld.
The Word that creates…everything.
The Word that holds all things together, that connects everything, that relates everything to everything else.
The hidden, silent, whispered Word that is always speaking this universe into existence.
If we could only hear, if we would only listen, if we should only speak so well.
The Word speaks the light, the heavens, the earth and all the fullness there of into existence and it is so and it is very good.
The Word speaks the ten words of Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, creating order out of disorder, speaking God’s people back into coherence.
The Word speaks over and over again in the prophets to restore the cohesiveness of God’s people.
That Word that makes life speaks again and becomes life, a flesh and blood human being.
The Word became flesh making what was only poorly heard now become easily understood.
John’s Gospel begins with this wonderful poem of the Word, the Word that brings light and life and healing and belief where there was darkness, death, brokenness and doubt.
In Christ the Word has related and entered the world in a new and decisive way, this time doing more than restoring cohesiveness, this time the Word is recreating, rebirthing the world. And that word is unheard.
The Christmas Season continues today with a deeper darker message, of the word being unheard.
The Gospel of Christmas is that in Christ we are being reborn and recreated into something new, into the children of God. No longer only God’s creatures or God’s people but now God’s children. We are becoming part of the Word that speaks all things, we are becoming part of the message, the speaking that holds life together.
Listening, hearing, speaking and being that Word that is good news to a world that has lost its coherence.
How do we do that? How do we become part of the message?
John’s Gospel was written by and for the people who feel the pain of not being seen for who they are.
John’s Gospel was written by and for those who are unheard, for those with no one listening to their words.
John’s Gospel was written by and for those who are turned away, for those who have no room.
Jesus, the unseen, is God’s seeing of all who are unseen.
Jesus, the unheard, is God’s hearing of all those who are unheard.
Jesus, the forsaken and forgotten, is God’s remembering of all those who are forgotten.
Jesus is God’s roominess, the roominess of God for those who are cast aside.
The one who is unseen and cast aside is the one who sees and makes room.
The word is speaking for those who have no voice, making them children of God.
How do we speak so well? How do we listen so carefully?
Words.
They create and destroy. What is waiting to be heard?
I love you?
Forgive me?
Help me?
Where does it hurt?
Let’s do something together?
What are the words?
What will they be?