In the beginning was the logos, so the text begins. The Greek mind read the word logos as the "mind" of God creating and ordering the universe. The Hebrew mind read logos as the "Word" of God speaking and ordering the world into existence.
Thus stands the prologue of John, one foot in the Greek world, the other in the Hebrew world; one foot in the world of science and philosophy, the other foot in the world of religion and moral action.
Scientists and theologians are talking together today as rarely before. Together they are pondering the patterns of the physical universe and biological world. Could it be that God is the best explanation of the world as we know it? Not as a "proof of the existence of God" as in older theologies, but as a stage for wonder, and a call to wonder. As one has said, "There is no lack of wonders in this world, only the lack of wonderment."
What are the mathematical odds that the physical universe on its own could have produced the exact conditions to bring forth conscious human life on this planet? The scientist, John Leslie, calculates the odds are about the same as having a fishing pole which can only accept a fish 23.2576 inches long and that upon casting this rod on a lake, you catch this exact fish as soon as your bait hits the water.1
One explanation is that by chance these odds worked out. The other is that there is a Creator behind it all. In the words of physicist/theologian John Polkinghorne:
But we cannot, this particular night, stop with the miracle of Creation, the logos, the mind and Word of God which created this world. We must go on to the ongoingness of creation, to an expanding universe and a human race still evolving into some better expression of itself -- and to the completion and redemption of the cosmos.
The universe of God is a combination of chance and order, freedom and necessity.
God has stepped back to allow the universe to continue being made and for the human species to make itself better.
This freedom to make itself better must also include the freedom to make ourselves worse. We have ample evidence of both. The end of slavery and apartheid and the conquering of many diseases. But we have also seen Nazi madness and holocaust, the bombing of the World Trade Centers and the manufacture of disease as a weapon of war.
We’ve seen the heroism of fire fighters and policemen in New York City and the sending of anthrax in letters through the mail.
But here is the substance of our faith: The light shines in the darkness and the darkness will not put it out.
Which brings us to the miracle of Incarnation, how God is completing the world: The logos of God, the mind and Word of God, the ordering principle of the universe, the heart of all that is beautiful and true and good -- the beauty of every musical line, of every mathematical equation, of every act of heroism and sainthood -- become flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone.
No doubt some would turn from this light, and did. Such freedom is built into the fabric of the universe.
But such a prospect did not deter the God of all creation who is committed to creation and has determined to do all that is necessary for the flourishing of the world.
And the logos became flesh and dwelt among us.
This one born this night in Bethlehem is what God had in mind all along. All that God is, all that God wants, all that God has been up to in the world since the beginning has entered our world as an infant, as a Jewish prophet, humanity exemplified, the divine intention enfleshed.
John Calvin said, "God knows we are creatures and so loves us in ways that we can understand: in bread, in wine and in water." And with this child who bore our human frame and revealed God’s face.
So this night, we bow before the Mystery of the Incarnation, a child in a manger. And at this table we take into our mouths molecules of holy matter made bread, made wine, which are the very life of God given to us, broken for us, poured out for us in Jesus whom we call Christ the Lord.
"To all who receive him who is the mind and heart of God made flesh," John adds, "God gives power to become children of God." Such is our identity and our destiny.
Would you receive him with as much faith as God gives you to believe this night? Whatever that is, that is enough. Would you receive him as you take bread and wine into your mouth? As you do, the power and mystery of the universe will enter you and you will enter it as the river that reaches the sea.
1. Cited in John Polkinghorne, Belief in God in an Age of Science (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1998).
2. Ibid., p. 9.