Reading
Jn 1:1-18
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 to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
A man named John was sent from God. He came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to testify to the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God. And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth
John testified to him and cried out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me because he existed before me. ’” From his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace, because while the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.
Meditation
The prologue to John's Gospel is probably an adaptation of ancient traditional material, perhaps a hymn, similar to other christological hymns found in Paul's letters. Its central nucleus presents short phrases linked to each other by the resumption of the last word of a verse in the first of the following verse.
Unlike Matthew and Luke, who begin their Gospel with the genealogy of Jesus according to the flesh, John is concerned with presenting Christ as the Logos who subsists with God before the creation of time and who is himself God (Jn 1: 1). The incipit "In the beginning" is the same as in Genesis. The "Verb" is a translation from the Latin Verbum, which in turn translates the Greek of the original Logos text, "Word". This represents God in action; in fact he creates and reveals himself through his Word and it is Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, who redeems humanity.
The term Logos while having an affinity with Greek philosophy is imbued in John by Old Testament references: it is with the Word that God created the world (Gn 1,3) and it is self-expression of the power, wisdom, revelation of God: "I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep" (Pr 8:27); "He sent out his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave." (Ps 107,20).
John certainly chooses the term Logos because it is understandable to both Jews and Gentiles; the Greek language was in fact the language learned in the Roman Empire of the time. Against some theories that circulated in the early centuries of Christianity, according to which the world was created by an inferior god, an emanation of the inaccessible God, or by angelic figures, the Johannine text proclaims that nothing was done without the Word of God.
Even the struggle between light and darkness is not destined, as in some cosmogonies, to an eternal coexistence of the two, but the light has conquered the darkness: this is the meaning of the Greek word katalambano which is to be understood with the meaning of "suppress". As the darkness of a room cannot obscure the flame of a candle, so the Logos prevails over darkness.
Light and darkness are two frequent terms in the Gospel of John. The light, in the Holy Scriptures, indicates their truth, while the darkness refers to error; on the moral ambit, light represents purity of heart and darkness represents impiety. In Johannine literature, darkness also indicates Satan and his cohort (1 Jn 5:19), who govern the present world. The term "darkness" occurs 17 times in the New Testament, of which 14 only in the Johannine texts. But the darkness is contrasted with light, which is also the "life", victorious over the prince of this world, who will be "thrown out" from the cross of Christ and with the definitive establishment of the Kingdom of God upon his return. The term "life" appears in John's Gospel 36 times and has a special meaning in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ.
The prologue continues by presenting John the Baptist as the man God sent to bear witness to Christ. But he is only a prophet, not the light itself; he is like the sentry who watches in the night to announce the approach of dawn (Is 21:11-12). Christ, on the other hand, is the light that illuminates every man, because he takes humanity itself upon himself through the incarnation. The Evangelist affirms that the darkness did not welcome the light; thereby indicating not only the rejection by the people of Israel of Christ, but a hostile, human and supernatural power, "the world" (a term that occurs 78 times in the Gospel of John, 24 times in his letters and 3 times in the Apocalypse). But whoever welcomes the Son of God, believing in his name, that is, in his power, has conquered the world and becomes a son of God by adoption. It is a real spiritual generation, which has nothing to do with an election determined by a blood bond, by a right acquired by descent from the chosen people. Instead, it is a procreative act of the Father, which allows men to "be born from above", to be reborn "of water and the Spirit" (Jn 3:3-5).
The Word becomes flesh, literally "pitches his tent" (eskenosen) among us, just as God had taken up residence in the tent of the meeting (Ex 33,7-10) erected by Moses. Now our humanity is his tent and in it Jesus has manifested the divine glory that once filled the tabernacle and the Temple. Just as the God of Israel dwelt with him in a humble tent and not a royal palace, so the Son chose to dwell in our humble human condition.
The mystery of the incarnation causes the infinite to become finite, the eternal conforming to time, the invisible visible, that which is superior to nature part of creation. All this without God, even though emptied of his power, without ceasing to be God, in Christ. Through Jesus the disciples saw the glory of God, in his attributes of grace, goodness, mercy, wisdom, truth. All that Christ is, all that he does, is an exegesis, interpretation and manifestation, of what God is and of his marvelous operations.
Prayer
Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin: Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace. may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
