Richard Mallory
Dear People of Saint Philip’s,
We’ve been hearing today’s gospel from the first chapter of John at the conclusion of advent services. Its beauty never tires. Here there are no shepherds, or magi, or genealogy. We get a sweeping cosmological viewpoint of the Christ originating at “the beginning.”
Christ is the defining and organizing principle of creation. The Christ is coexistent with God and is God.
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus(540-480 BCE) also used that same Greek word the fourth gospel employs—logos. Might the unknown author of the fourth gospel have encountered Heraclitus’ famous key word in the exchange of ideas in the Mediterranean basin?
I think it is possible that this gospel is redefining the meaning of logos. While both agree that logos gets at the unity of all things and that humanity lives in “blindness,” Heraclitus thinks of war as inevitable while John sees harmony within reach when humanity embraces the logos that is Christ. Jesus the Christ is never a conquering force but is “the one who became flesh and dwelt among us.” Even though the darkness is fully charged in every generation, it is never able to completely extinguish the light that was coming into the world and is still intending to come into the world wherever “meek souls receive him still.”
The logos, the Word became a baby. The organizing principle itself became embodied which is called incarnation. The principle that holds galaxies together and knits cells into being became one of us. God could not restrain God’s Self from breaking through the separation of the ordinary from the cosmic. In this profound reversal, God’s power is revealed not in domination but in self-emptying love.
And the invitation? “To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.” But then the pathos and tragedy. Yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. While the “unaccepting group” may have been intended to be Jews (the author, “John,” was a Jew, mind you), his “own people” are far more than those of Jewish identity. His “own people” are simply people. People everywhere.
Not wanting to know him is a human tendency. We humans resist. We cling to smaller stories, to systems we can control, to boundaries that feel safe. We hold out against the Light because it exposes our cherished darkness. We hold on to limited views because expansion requires letting go.
For Heraclitus, the logos involved a conquering force while John’s logos is the organizing principle of reconciliation and the healing of divisions grounded in a love that overcomes enmity. This is the Light continually offered humanity and the logos will always allow its expulsion from the world if that is what humans choose to do. The invitation remains open. We can become what we already are—children of God, living in the Light.
Your fellow traveler,
—Richard
