1 Christmas

How do you begin to imagine the Word made flesh? How does the Word in the flesh come to life in your life? For me that may be a good book that ignites my imagination, takes my brain into places it hasn’t been before, it is in the people I know and the stories they tell. It is also in music.

When I read these words from the beginning of the gospel of John, it is a symphony that I hear. I hear a perfect note as the music begins. The choirmaster at my seminary said that the note most common in nature is a G. As this symphony begins, I imagine it is a G that sings into existence the rest of the story. Music is organic; as is the Love of God. It is in every fiber of creation, the stones shout it out, the wind hums the word, the rain keeps the beat, the grace and truth of Christ is made real in the dance of the spheres.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Every time I hear these words from John I hear the language of music. Sometimes for me the language of music speaks more clearly than words. When I hear this passage from John I am encircled, enveloped, swaddled, if you will, in the awesome and abundant love of our creator. When I hear these words I hear a symphony. I hear the bass, the tuba and the tympani and the baritone, beating as the heart of creation. I hear the bass clarinets, and the bassoons, and the saxophones joining in the building of the harmonies. I hear the flutes and the clarinets and the violins with the melody of love and hope. And I hear the trumpets and the French horns with the blast of the proclamation that God who has created the world comes into it as one of us. And I hear the sadness of the oboe and the English horn, with the news that some do not choose to listen to the music. And then the voices join the fray. Ahh, the dance begins.

Music exists in relationship. The relationship of the composer to the music, the relationship of the music to the hearer, and the relationship of the musicians to the music. Can music really be music without those who hear it?

Music tells us a story. Music has a beginning, a middle, and an end. We, the hearers might like the music, and we might not like the music. When our boys were younger, in elementary school, I would volunteer in their classes to teach a music listening class called Bravo. The idea was to teach children to love and appreciate classical music before others were able to teach them not to like it. In that class we would listen to a piece of music and talk about the story it told. We would imagine the creatures and the people who populated the story of the music.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

These are words, which try to describe and contain the most awesome reality that cannot be described and contained. God, the composer, if you will, sings the perfect note, and in doing so, enters into relationship with the music. The music is Jesus, and we are the hearers. Of course there are tons of flaws with this metaphor, our language is totally inadequate to describe the reality of God. But, once the music begins, you and I, the hearers, will go out and tell others about how the music changed us, we loved it, we hated it, and everything in between. But for the hearing, we are forever changed.

That’s the awesome power here, in the beginning of John. You and I and the world we live in cannot be the same, we are forever changed; God is turning the world around. The music, the light, the word, seeps in and through us so that we can never be who we were before we heard it. And that is the rest of the story. The purpose of the gospel of John is to evangelize; the purpose of the gospel of John is to point to God. The purpose of the gospel of John is to convince the hearer that once we encounter God in the flesh, Jesus, nothing for us, and nothing for our world, can be the same, the world is about to turn.

Because the music, who is God in the flesh, Jesus, lived and died as one of us, a human being. The amazing movement in this symphony is when we thought the music went silent; we thought the darkness put out the light. But it didn’t. The composer began again with a new song, the song that returned the light to the world.

It is this encounter with the word, with the music; it is this relationship between the composer, the music, and you, where eternal life lies. The gospel of John is full of references to eternal life. And in John, eternal life is not something that happens after this life, it is this life. It is the way we live when we hear the music, when we are the musicians, when we encounter Jesus.

Alleluia. To us a child is born: Come let us adore him. Alleluia.