Beginnings are special. The beginning of all beginnings has to be the most special. No human was there. This is universally agreed by theologians and scientists, believers, agnostics and atheists. So we who result from the beginning are left to ponder and to wonder.
What marked the beginning? The first sentence of John Chapter 1 verse 1 is “In the beginning was the Word”. Like many others, I find this phrase profound. It is the source of recurrent meditation and inspiration. More than 40 years ago I remember bringing the message at a Christmas morning service at church and spoke on John Chapter 1 verse 1. There was an elderly lady who I transported regularly. In taking her to her home that morning after the service she said in a most loving way that the message sounded good but she did not understand what I had said. That comment was sobering then and still sobering now, because it highlights both my limited understanding and powers of expression. Nonetheless, I have come back to this verse again and again over the years. This morning I watched the Catholic Channel and listened to the eloquent and learned late Bishop Fulton G. Sheen of New York who made brief reference to this verse. Again I am prompted to mediate on this verse.
Words are the expressions of thought. But this Word of the beginning is special thought. It is transcendent thought. It is thought beyond all thoughts. It is not a word but The Word. This Word is comprehensive and complete. It bridges eternity and time, the spiritual and the material.
Words are a manifestation of intelligence. But this Word is the manifestation of ultimate intelligence. The more we discover about the smallest particles within the atom, about the outer reaches of the expanding universe, the ways in which planets orbit suns and moons orbit planets and the narrow limits within which life as we know it is sustained the more that we must confront the fact that there is intelligence at work beyond our collective intelligence. Further, that all of this has happened by chance is as absurd as the limits of probability where all things meet at infinity. Hence infinity must be divided by itself in order to finally resolve the uncertainties embedded in probability.
Words convey purpose. But this Word is original purpose. It is the fountainhead, the source, the watershed from which all other purposes flow. It is the purpose into which all other purposes fit.
In a nutshell, it is the aboriginal purpose that provides fulfillment when all other purposes are achieved. This Word is and expresses ultimate grand design purpose.
Words have meanings. But this Word is definitive meaning. It is the meaning above all meaning. It is the meaning that makes sense of everything. It is the deepest, highest and broadest meaning. This Word has true meaning. Hence, there is no truth that we need fear and no distortion or mangling or misrepresentation of truth that will prevail.
Words are abstract expressions. But this Word is concrete. It is personified. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us… and we beheld His glory, as the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth”
This Word is Jesus, He is the one. “This rock is Jesus the only one. Be very sure be very sure your anchor holds and grips the solid rock.”
A world in which there is no transcendent thought, no ultimate intelligence, no original and prevailing purpose, no definitive meaning or absolute truth and where words are only abstractions devoid of the personal is a world of man’s creation. God’s creative work from the beginning was expressed in the Word that was transcendent, intelligent, purposeful, meaningful and personal.
Lord Jesus, you know my faults, frailties, failures and flaws. I pray that by Your Grace and empowering that today and each day, what I do and say will be in obedience to You, the Word , the Way and the Life. Amen.
