Reflection for the Second Sunday of Christmas

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through the Word, and without the Word not one thing came into being. What has come into being in the Word was life, and the life was the light of all people.”

It may come as a surprise to you, but this is one of the first sections of the Bible that students learn to translate from the Greek. You may imagine they’d start at the beginning of the New Testament, with Matthew, or that one of the shorter letters of Paul would be a good first exercise. But, no, these first verses from the Gospel of John contain some of the simplest Greek for translating. Actually, the entire Gospel of John is written in some of the simplest Greek in the New Testament, and so was what my second semester of Greek focused on translating.

If you look at the language of these verses, they contain simple sentence structure, clear conjunctions and transitions, and fairly basic vocabulary: Word, God, beginning, life, light, etc.

I find it wonderful that these verses, which some may argue as some of the most powerful, are written in the simplest language. Of course, the theological concepts that they relay may not seem simple, but really, it breaks down quite nicely:

            Beginning = Word

            Word with God

            Word = God

            Word = God = Beginning

            Word makes all things.

            Word makes light

            Light = Life

We may try to make it more complicated, and theologians may argue about what is meant by “beginning” or what is meant by “come into being,” but in the end, for all of us who don’t make our living by writing theological books, all that matters is that the Word, whom we know from later verses is made human in the form of Jesus Christ, is with God, and is God. All that matters is that the Word that was spoken in creation is the Word made flesh in the person of Jesus. All that matters is that the Word made flesh in the person of Jesus is the Word that spoke light into being, that spoke us into being.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.