Did you happen to notice that the Gospel chosen for New Year’s Eve is the Prologue to the Gospel according to John (John 1:1-18)? I hadn’t. Is this on purpose, or is it just the next Christmas-related scripture in line? These first 18 verses were added to this Gospel later, and placed before the traditional beginning where John the Baptist comes on the scene. These verses set the stage for the drama of Jesus’ life by inserting his life into a timeless, cosmic context.
Jesus is identified as the Word of God that speaks creation into existence. God speaks. It happens. And it is all very good. Before any unfolding, or evolving, or developing. there was God, there was God’s Word. Then God speaks, and that is the beginning of all else, of all that will come.
This adds to, and contrasts with, the stories of creation in the Book of Genesis. In Genesis, there is some primordial chaos, over which the Spirit of God, the breath of God, hovers. God says, “Let there be…,” and it happens. God brings forth order, and progressively introduces the principal pieces that we human beings recognize as created reality.
John points out that the Word, that takes on flesh in Jesus, has been part of everything since before the beginning. It is God’s Word, the divine, effective Word. This Word is the source of life, and manifests itself as light – which was the first outcome of creation.
This Word becomes flesh, moves in with us, and offers us a choice – the light of belief, or the darkness of unbelief.We can pretend, against all scientific evidence, that creation always was, or just randomly came about (lucky for us!). Or we can accept that God’s desire from before the beginning was that we have all that we need to live well, and to be well.
On the cusp of a new year, we are offered this wonderful message: God wants, and has always (as in eternally) wanted to manifest the fullness of divine love for all of us, for all creation – to the point of entering into creation and becoming one of us. No darkness, real or imagined, has ever, or can ever, overcome the light offered to us. This truth is the source of our hope. Welcome the New Year! May it be abundantly good and richly blessed for all!