Scripture text for Monday, March 15th, 2010: John 1:1-1:18
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Genesis 1 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God said, ‘Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.’ Then God said, ‘Let the land produce vegetation: seed bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed, according to their various kinds.’ And it was so. And God said, ‘Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.’ And God said, ‘Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds…’ And it was so. Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image.”
God spoke the world and all of creation into being. The Word of God created the stars, the sun, the moon, the earth, the oceans, the plants, the animals and you and me. The word of God is the source of all that is.
John 1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” And, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” Embodied in his flesh, Jesus was the creative force that made and continues to power our entire universe.
The “word” in Greek is “logos.” While the literal translation for “logos” is “word,” to the Greek philosophers it had a much deeper meaning. To the Greek Stoics, “logos” was reason or logic, it was the rationality that permeated the entire universe, including all people, and gave order to all things. When a Greek or Roman gentile read John’s Gospel, they would understand that Jesus was the “word,” the “logos” that governed and gave order to all creation. That certainly would have gotten their attention, as it got mine.
As I was rereading John 1 for the 27th time, I reflected on what this meant to me. I realized that God created my body, my mind and my soul. He “spoke” me into existence. God created my mother and father who raised me. God created the food that kept me alive and gave me my education. God created our country and our economic system. God created Purdue and my job that allows me to research how our economic system functions. In my research, God allows me to rediscover what he already knows. (Maybe that is why they call it re-search.) God created my children and my grandchildren. God created and gave me everything I have and everything I have ever done. All that I have is His, it was never really mine.
In that moment of realization, for a split second, all of my pride vanished, I stopped and gave thanks to God.
Devotion prepared by John Umbeck