A mid-December new moon means darkness, as it does eleven other times in a year. It is an excellent time to view the other celestial objects. The Apostle John connects the creation of those stars to the Christmas story.
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 apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of mankind. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (NASB).
The word, ‘Word’, is used three times in John 1:1. The Greek word for ‘Word’ in John’s prologue is ‘logos.’ The Graeco-Roman world, to whom John was writing, embraced the concept of ‘logos’ as the ultimate reason and rationality—the ordering principle—behind the universe. In contrast their word ‘chaos’ named the formless and void before the creation of the world. The English language borrowed ‘chaos’ to mean disorder and confusion.
‘Logos’ and chaos were impersonal forces to the Greeks.
But, John declares the ‘logos’ a Person, not a force or ultimate Rationality. John’s ‘logos,’ THE Word, the ordering principle, the ultimate reality, was there in the chaos, the formless and void.
He names the Person of Christ as the protagonist of the creation story. We know what came next:
God drove Adam and Eve out of Paradise. The blessed cosmos of Paradise turned into an evil chaotic world: enmity among animals, between husbands and wives, nature and humans, and separating humans and God. And where would it end? in death–the ultimate chaos.
How could the Greeks of John’s world navigate the chaos around them? By an impersonal rationality? Of course not, and neither can we.
So, the ‘logos’, the promised Redeemer, who was there in the beginning, there in the chaos of the fall of mankind, entered our fallen chaos in the fullness of time.
The Word (logos) became flesh and lived among us (John 1:14). The Word of creation entered His world as a human baby: Logos born into chaos.
Our world is still chaotic and folks are still busy choosing ordering principles, and naming forces to help us cope with the chaos. One presidential candidate used the word several times in the last Republican debate, acknowledging the chaos in China, the chaos in Ukraine and at the border, the chaos of US politics and populace. ‘We’ve got to stop the chaos.’ Good sentiment. We are tempted to believe politics makes it possible.
Closer to home, we might exclaim when we walk through the door, “This is chaos!”
But…what about the chaos inside of you, of me? The plan of the evil one daunts us as we walk through the valley of the shadow of chaos.
Is there hope for the Word, logos, to enter my story, as He entered the formless and void, and as He broke through into the broken world? Who can move into my inner chaos and do anything about it? Only One.
Do you believe this story? In all its parts? Creation, Garden, Incarnation? There can only be one true account. Our lives depend on clinging to the right story. Dorothy Sayers jolts us to swallow the narrative whole:
[This is] …the drama — not beautiful phrases, nor comforting sentiments, nor vague aspirations…nor the promise of something nice after death –Let us, in heaven’s name, drag out the divine drama from under the dreadful accumulation of slipshod thinking and trashy sentiment. [1]
John tells a big story in very few words: The last Word on creation, the last word on redemption, the last word on your story.
Into the wilderness of the world, and the wildness in my heart came, comes a PERSON.
Light in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.
John said by and through the Word everything was created. John said Logos came into the chaotic world. John said Logos is with you in your inner chaos.
Look up at the night sky and connect the dots—like stars in a constellation telling a true story.
Prayer:
Help our unbelief of Your story, whichever part throws us. Thank you that the dawn has come, though we see only dimly now. Help us to hold fast to you as a Person in the outer and inner chaos: Jesus—Author of our story, Finisher of our faith.
1 Sayers, Dorothy, Creed or Chaos, p. 27