The Gospel is very carefully put together. The first half describes seven signs which point to who Jesus is, things like turning the water in wine. The second half is all about the last week of the life of Jesus and his death and resurrection. Right in the middle of these two halves is the greatest sign which Jesus does, story of the raising of Lazarus to life from death. It is in the face of this miracle that the Jewish leaders decide that they must kill Jesus.

The passage today is a special poetic introduction which is called to this message of Jesus as the one who brings life out of death, these first 18 verses are called ‘The Prologue’. John is very different from the other Gospel writers who start their Gospels with stories about the life of Jesus. We call Matthew, Mark and Luke the Synoptic Gospels because they see things the same. (The word synoptic in the Greek is syn - together optic = see). These Gospel writers use the same material, the same stories and parables. Matthew and Luke describe the birth Jesus with the stories surrounding Bethlehem and shepherds and kings. Mark begins with a grown up Jesus who is baptised in a river by John the Baptist. They start their Gospels thinking about the human Jesus, where he was born, who his family were, or with Mark the start of his ministry as a grown man. John is entirely different he begins with this Prologue with the words ’In the beginning.’ Now what do those words remind you of? Certainly in the minds of the Jewish readers of his Gospel they would immediately think of Genesis. John is placing Jesus origins in Bethlehem but before the history of the world itself. John doesn’t use the name Jesus, instead he speaks of Jesus as  ‘The Word.’ This is a bit confusing for us because it would be odd to refer to anybody as a Word, but actually at the time it was very clever and the people who heard this would understand a deep meaning. He was using language to speak of Jesus which they could make sense of but which is a bit difficult for us!

Greek philosophers going back to Heraclitus around 600BC used the term Logos  and by it they meant the divine reason which kept the whole universe together. When they looked at the way the starts worked in the heavens, or how the earth had its seasons, they attributed it all to the Logos. Greek philosophers like Plato (b 426BC) and the Stoics who came after him in the third century BC had emphasised that this Word was something invisible and eternal.  A way to understand it might be to think of Star Wars and ‘The Force.’

However what made John’s use of the term Logos especially clever was that it wasn’t just Greek philosophy which understood it, it also held meaning for monotheistic Jews. It is thought that some parts of the Prologue might be from an established hymn rooted in the writings of the Jewish Wisdom tradition. If you were studied in the poetic traditions of Proverbs, Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon then it would all make much more sense, unfortunately most people are not. When the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek, the word used to translate 'Wisdom' was a feminine noun 'Sophia.' The writer is saying about Jesus what had been written in the Jewish tradition about Wisdom (Sophia). We have difficulty thinking of God as encompassing the female but Wisdom is a part of God and in Proverbs she is inviting us to learn from her.

So we have this earthly Wisdom seen in Books like Proverbs, distinct from God and yet a part of God. In John's Gospel this 'Wisdom of God' is compared with the 'Word of God.' Just as Wisdom had been at work in the universe forever, so had Jesus. The divine wisdom of God is shown to be present in Jesus.  Jews would reflect back to the creation of God in Genesis and the Wisdom of God active in creation in Proverbs 8. The word of God was responsible for the act of creation ‘by your word the heavens were made’ Psalm 33. 

Philo of Alexandria (b 20BC) was a Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria in Egypt and he had already put together aspects of the Jewish conceptions of the ’word’ with Greek philosophy.

In Judaism there was a bringing together of Wisdom, Word and indeed the Law as a person. So by calling Jesus ‘The Word’ John is saying that in Jesus is found all of God’s revelation from the scriptures, he replaces the Torah itself.

The big leap which John makes in the Prologue is that he takes the Greek and Jewish understandings of the Word further. Neither Greek philosophers or Jewish teachers could conceive of the Word becoming flesh. Since the time of Plato, Greek philosophers had emphasised that the ideal was what was invisible and eternal. Matter was not divine, indeed it was  created by subordinate god or demiurge, a copy of  true world of forms. Equally for Jews it was important to understand that a human being (like Caesar) could never be a god, they could not even begin to conceive that God could become human.

What John is saying in this Prologue is completely new and remarkable, the Word is Jesus and Jesus is nothing less than the embodiment in flesh of God. The English translations which we have of the Greek text might express the words of John slightly differently but the text is very clear

that the Word was in the beginning with God and God was the Word. In the 14th century Tyndale made the first translation of the Bible from the Greek and Hebrew. When he first translated this passage in 1534 he said

‘In the begynnynge was that worde, and that worde was with god: and god was thatt worde’

There is no room for manouvre here, Jesus is God and God is Jesus. The early church subsequently spent the first few centuries trying to work out how two and eventually three could be one, only to come up with the doctrine of the Trinity which essentially tells us the God defies human description . The Jehovah’s Witnesses have solved it quite neatly by introducing into the text an indefinite article so that Jesus is no longer God but ’a’ god. This solves the mathematics but it does so at the expense of truth and makes Jesus less than God.    

John goes on to speak of the human Jesus as being God’s presence with us and he draws on Exodus where God revealed himself to Moses (33-34) his glory was ‘abounding in covenant love and covenant faithfulness (EX34:6), which could be translated grace and truth. Just like Moses, the disciples (2 Cor 3:16-18) saw God’s glory, not glorious divine presence which hovered over the Ark of the Covenant, rather they saw God alive in Jesus. 

Throughout the Gospel we will see this recurring theme of Jesus being God brought out forcefully. Jesus repeatedly says ‘I am’ echoing God’s naming of himself in Exodus 3:14. Up until this point God has been active in the world as been Wisdom (Sophia), in all things, but now God is made incarnate - in flesh. Jesus is God with skin, not just spirit. Now God can be seen and touched, God is not elusive or distant he has made his dwelling with us, he has 'tabernacled' with us - pitched his tent next to ours ! John is placing Jesus as high as you can get in terms of intimacy with God, but he is also bringing Jesus low, so much so that we can in Jesus touch the living presence of God. If we want to know what God is like then we need look no further than Jesus.

Jesus has been around since the beginning, bringing light out of darkness, now he has come to us. The sadness is that he has been rejected by God's people, the Jews, the very people to whom he has been sent. The good news is that the story does not end there, those who do accept Jesus (verse12) no matter what race, these people are children of God in a special way.

God has become flesh so that he might be revealed to all flesh. The writer is making clear the point that Jesus is for everybody, he is understood against the history of God's dealing with Israel, yet those dealings of God with that people have now been opened up to all people. Charles Royden

Meditation

Saint Patrick

Patrick was born somewhere on the west coast of Britian, his father was a deacon and ahis grandfather was a priest - of course in those days priests were allowed to marry. When he was six years old he was captured by Irish raiders and taken to Ireland as a slave. Six years later he escaped and went to Gaul and eventually returned to his family. He trained as a priest and when he was 40 he was consecrated as a bishop and returned to Ireland as a missionary. He died in about 460AD.

He left behind a number of his writings, his 'Confessions' and 'Letter to Coroticus.' he may have used a the three leaved Shamrock as an illustration of the Trinity. He did not as legend tells banish snakes from Ireland since like several other areas which were covered by the polar ise sheetsduring the Ice Age, Ireland has never had any!

One prayer attributed to Patrick is his evening prayer. It is a typcial Celtic piece using very simple down to earth vocabulary and imagery to express deep spiritual truths. It expresses the conviction that we need fear not since even our dreams are under God's protective angels.

May your angels holy Son,
guard our homes when day is done,
when at peace, our sleep is best
bid them watch us while we rest.

Prince of everything that is
High Priest of mysteries
let your angels, God supreme,
tell us truth dressed as a dream

May no terror and no fright
spoil our slumber in the night;
free from care our eyelids close;
Spirit, give us prompt repose.

We have laboured through the day:
lift our burdens when we pray,
then our souls in safety keep,
that our sleep be soft and deep.

Hymns

Sunday Next before Lent Hymn Sheet

Christ, whose glory fills the skies Tune England Lane
In a world where people walk in darkness,
In the cross of Christ I glory:Tune All for Jesus
At the name of Jesus Tune Camberwell
Long ago the Father's voice Tune St George Windsor
Praise to the holiest
Let all mortal flesh keep silence
Thou whose almighty word
Christ triumphant ever reigning
Name of all majesty
Hail thou once despised Jesus

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

Prayer is a plant, the seed of which is sown in the heart of every Christian,
if it is well cultivated and nourished it will produce fruit, but if it is neglected, it will wither and die
 

Grant us, O Lord, to pass this day in gladness and peace, without stumbling and without stain, that reaching the day's end victorious over all temptation, we may again praise you, the eternal God, blessed over all things now and for ever. Amen. Mozarabic Sacramentary (tenth century)

Additional Material

Proverbs 8:1,22-31
Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice?

“The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old; I was formed long ages ago, at the very beginning, when the world came to be. When there were no watery depths, I was given birth, when there were no springs overflowing with water; before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth, before he made the world or its fields or any of the dust of the earth. I was there when he set the heavens in place,
when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above
and fixed securely the fountains of the deep, when he gave the sea its boundary
so the waters would not overstep his command, and when he marked out the foundations of the earth. Then I was constantly at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.

Colossians 1:15-20
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Mark 1:40-45

A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

Commentary

In Jesus' day, the word leprosy was used for a broad range of skin conditions, many of which today would find a remedy in a good bar of soap. Sadly in the Old Testament they often thought that God afflicted people with leprosy as punishment (Num. 12:9-10; 2 Kings 5:27; 15:5; 2 Chron. 26:19-21). Lepers were cast out from the group and regarded as cursed by God. But this is not just a sin of the Israelites, in all societies people who are different, disabled, or disfigured simply do not fit in. Moreover often we invest their ‘defects’ with a social stigma that we do not want to catch. We avoid looking at them, we avoid touching them because they are bad people.

It is glorious to see in the reading today just how Jesus is prepared to go out and literally touch these people. Whatever had caused people to become prostitutes or sinners, whatever society taught about the sinfulness of the lepers, he was prepared to cross the divide and show them that God cared. According to the Old Testament Jesus would have been made unclean through his contact with this leper, instead with Jesus the power goes the other way and the man is restored. Such is the power of God. So who are we afraid of touching?

------

One of the worst things for children is being different. If you stand out from the crowd in any way you are picked on taunted, bullied and abused. It might be wearing the wrong kind of coat, or the wrong brand of shoes. A pretty child and an ugly child share the same problem, they are not middle of the road. This is the territory in which children live in schools. 

Fortunately as we grow older and more mature we learn not only to stick up for ourselves, but hopefully also to accept others, to recognise that we are all different and that it is OK to be an individual. You do not have to dress, think, speak the same as the rest of the group. This is about "social acceptability" but perhaps sometimes it is wishful thinking. International wars have been started and continue to be threatened because we are sometimes not so mature about our differences. 

The same thing is demonstrated in the two passages today from 2 Kings and Mark. In the lesson from Kings we read about Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in his society a brave soldier and highly regarded. Then Mark tells us about another man who approached Jesus who was forced to live as an outcast in his society, he would have had his hair unkempt, he would have covered the lower part of his face and was supposed to cry out, 'Unclean! Unclean!' (Lev 13:45). These two men lived very different lives but they had one important thing in common, they each had leprosy. Naaman suffered from a skin disease which bore no stigma among his own people, but it put him in the ‘unclean’ category among the chosen people of Israel.

In Jesus' day, the word leprosy was used for a broad range of skin conditions, many of which today would find a remedy in a good bar of soap. Sadly in the Old Testament they often thought that God afflicted people with leprosy as punishment (Num. 12:9-10; 2 Kings 5:27; 15:5; 2 Chron. 26:19-21). Lepers were cast out from the group and regarded as cursed by God. But this is not just a sin of the Israelites, in all societies people who are different, disabled, or disfigured simply do not fit in. Moreover often we invest their ‘defects’ with a social stigma that we do not want to catch. We avoid looking at them, we avoid touching them because they are bad people.

It is glorious to see in the reading today just how Jesus is prepared to go out and literally touch these people. Whatever had caused people to become prostitutes or sinners, whatever society taught about the sinfulness of the lepers, he was prepared to cross the divide and show them that God cared. According to the Old Testament Jesus would have been made unclean through his contact with this leper, instead with Jesus the power goes the other way and the man is restored. Such is the power of God. So who are we afraid of touching? Charles Royden

Commentary

It is not easy for us to read the beginning of the Gospel of John because it is a strange and so utterly different from the beginnings of the other Gospels. Matthew and Luke describe the birth Jesus with the stories surrounding Bethlehem and shepherds and kings. Mark begins with a grown up Jesus who is baptised in a river by John the Baptist. In John's Gospel we read 'In the beginning was the Word' ! It is confusing to say the least, so don’t worry if you find it odd, it is not just you who wonders what on earth is going on. The reason for this is that the writer of John is using poetry, perhaps parts of an established hymn rooted in the writings of the Jewish Wisdom tradition. If you were studied in the poetic traditions of Proverbs, Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon then it would all make much more sense, unfortunately most people are not. The writer is saying about Jesus what had been written in the Jewish tradition about Wisdom (Sophia). Wisdom is a part of God and in Proverbs Wisdom is shown as a woman, inviting us to learn from her. When the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek, the word used to translate 'wisdom' was a feminine noun 'Sophia.' So we have this earthly Wisdom seen in Books like Proverbs, seen as distinct from God and yet a part of God. In John's Gospel this 'Wisdom of God' is compared with the 'Word of God.' Just as Wisdom had been at work in the universe forever, so had Jesus.

When we read 'In the beginning' we can hardly help thinking of the resonance with Genesis and the theme of creation. In Genesis we read a poetic account of creation which uses language to convey the idea of God creating and making the world. Now in this Gospel the writer uses the term Word (logos) to indicate that Jesus, like Wisdom, is part of eternal history. In the verses of this introduction to the Gospel the writer weaves together themes and words which show that Jesus is the fulfillment of everything which has previously been thought about God in the history of Israel and God's working with these people. Jesus as Logos is the source of all life and light in the world. Using the term Logos was particularly effective because it would also have meant something to the pagan philosophers who spoke of the 'word' as the 'sense' the rationality which was embedded in all humanity and in creation itself.

The difference between God activity in the world up until this point is that until now God has been Wisdom (Sophia), in all things, but now God is made incarnate - in flesh. Jesus is God with skin, not just spirit. Now God can be seen and touched, God is not elusive or distant he has made his dwelling with us, he has 'tabernacled' with us - pitched his tent next to ours ! John is placing Jesus as high as you can get in terms of intimacy with God, but he is also bringing Jesus low, so much so that we can in Jesus touch the living presence of God. If we want to know what God is like then we need look no further than Jesus.
Jesus has been around since the beginning, bringing light out of darkness, now he has come to us. The sadness is that he has been rejected by God's people, the Jews, the very people to whom he has been sent. The good news is that the story does not end there, those who do accept Jesus (verse12) no matter what race, these people are children of God in a special way.

God has become flesh so that he might be revealed to all flesh. The writer is making clear the point that Jesus is for everybody, he is understood against the history of God's dealing with Israel, yet those dealings of God with that people have now been opened up to all people. Charles Royden

Hymns

First Hymn
Christ, whose glory fills the skies,
Christ, the true, the only light,
Sun of righteousness, arise,
Triumph o'er the shades of night;
Day-spring from on high, be near;
Day-star, in my heart appear.
Dark and cheerless is the morn
Unaccompanied by thee:
Joyless is the day's return,
Till thy mercy's beams I see,
Till they inward light impart,
Glad my eyes, and warm my heart.
Visit then this soul of mine;
Pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
Fill me, radiancy divine;
Scatter all my unbelief;
More and more thyself display,
Shining to the perfect day.
Tune England Lane