On Earth, Peace

A Christmas Season Reflection

In the beginning was the Word…And the Word became flesh and lived among us (John 1.1a, 14a)

John the evangelist, copying the language of the first book of the Hebrew Bible, pulls back the curtain of the creation story to behold the celestial activity preceding the first dawn. For John, “in the beginning” is before the beginning.

Gazing into the void of pre-creation, John speaks of the Word. In the Greek, Logos.[1] Divine wisdom and will. The origin and order, the sense and substance, the creative energy and eternal character of the cosmos.[2] And this Word, this source of all that is, yearning to partake of life as we know it, “became flesh and lived among us.”

To what end? To stand apart and distinct from us? To be admired, even adored by us?

I think not.

Reflecting on the life of Jesus, according to John, God desires to live among us that we might live with God. That there be divine wisdom in flesh, not only in the one from Nazareth two thousand years ago, but in us today. That there be no estrangement of earth from heaven, of humanity from divinity, of the daily course of the created order from the cosmic cause of creation.

God desires to make peace. So, the angel and heavenly host, announcing the birth of Jesus, sang, “Glory to God, and on earth, peace.”[3]

Today, I wonder, what does divine wisdom taking flesh in us look like?

What does divine wisdom acting through us in thought, word, and deed look like in a world where enmities, ancient and newfound, flare, wars of words and bombs rage unceasing, and tolls of misery and death rise?

What would our lives and the world look like if we believed, and then acted as we believed that we were incarnations, embodiments of peace?

© 2022 PRA

#peace #peaceonearth #weareincarnationsofpeace

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[1] An idea hardly fully comprehendible, thus, by necessity, one whose meaning is sought, in effect, throwing words at the Word.

[2] Analogously, it would be as if there was a word that summed me up so completely that for me to speak it would be to convey to you the fullest sense of all that I was, am, and will be.

[3] Luke 2.14; my emphasis