Seeking Life In John 1

Because I’m in a place in my life where things are hard, And because I need the Word more than I need to write, I’m going to devote a lot of my writing in the near future to examining the Scriptures.

There are a lot of people who have years of training at doing this. I do not. I barely know how to use Strong’s concordance. But one thing I do know: I’m his child, and if my father’s written me a letter, then I should be able to understand at least some of it. However, I do this with a little trepidation. I know that some will interpret my selections of Scripture in a different way than I do. I also know that there are others who value their own experience in the Scriptures too little. I do not do this with the intention of engaging either of these points of view. I’m not up for debate. I know “Jehovah’s Witnesses” who could argue in circles, leaving you wearing your pants on your head. I’m not looking to persuade anybody. I’m merely trying to worship my God by elevating the Scriptures through my own voice.

Let’s begin…

I’m aware of the pitfalls of paraphrases. Yet, I love their ability to cut through all the rehearsed religion and get down to the real substance. There’s no replacing that. No place Is more evident in the paraphrase that The Message by Eugene Peterson gives to John 1.

The Life-Light
1-2 The Word was first,
the Word present to God,
God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
in readiness for God from day one.

I love this. Instead of the standard of rehearsed, “In the beginning was the word in the word was with God and the word was God,” we get four simple words. “The Word was first.” First? First before what? First before everything! John emphasizes the primacy of God, embodied in His Son, Jesus Christ. Before everything else, there was Jesus. Before the sun, The earth, the moon, the stars, or the billions of galaxies of stars, there was the Son of Man.

3-5 Everything was created through him;
nothing—not one thing!—
came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life,
and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn't put it out.

Eugene Peterson really nailed it on this one. It’s succinct and each line is so foundational literally to everything else in the world. But what John is also saying is that in order for him to tell you the rest of the story, you must first accept that there is a God.

I also think, writer to writer, that John had one killer case of writer’s block. He must of wandered around Patmos, or wherever he was, for days trying to get his mind around this concept. Clearly, in the three years of Jesus’ ministry and in visions since then, John had experienced something that he was truly struggling to put into words. We also see this in the fact that the Gospel of John is not like one of the three synoptic Gospels, meaning from roughly the same point of view. John talks in elements, simple illustrations really, to try to get this amazing truth across to his audience. I believe that the Gospel of John was mercifully included for those of us that didn’t get the other three.

Later on in John, a similar “difficult moment” emerges when Jesus is trying to convince his disciples to eat his flesh and drink his blood. Jesus repeatedly says, “I am the bread of life.” It really shakes the disciples up, and many people leave Him.

By including both of these, I believe that John is trying to get us to wrap our heads around something that I’ve only come close to summarizing: It’s all about Jesus. All of our life, our energy to live and breathe and walk and sleep and dream and eat and do anything else, comes from this… the Son of Man. If that’s where all of our life comes from, shouldn’t every aspect of it reflect His attributes? It should. That’s the direction John is leading in, yet I think he’s also trying to point out that life does not always reflect God’s attributes. This is the darkness at the end of the passage above. It doesn’t reflect God’s light at all. It’s dark, sinister and evil. Just like the earth is half in light and half in darkness, its inhabitants also experience God’s Life-Light and the death-dark. It’s not God’s doing. It’s ours. We brought the night with us when we sinned and chose to serve ourselves. We rejoice in broad daylight and cower in darkness. We turn toward God and embrace his warmth and we also turn toward the night and endure the chill. Every one of us does this to some extent, saved or un-saved, bonded or free. But Whose we are makes all the difference.

6-8 There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.

John the Baptist came to call people to repentance, to make a straight path for the Lord. Those who wanted God flocked to see him. They were baptized, symbolically dying and turning to God for their new life in Him. They hungered after God’s warmth and light. Just like I do.