December 2011

Christmas will soon be upon us and with it all the usual rush of presents, parties and family gatherings. In among the frenzy it is good to reflect again of what we are celebrating.

St John masterfully records:

'In the beginning was the Word (Logos) and the Word (Logos) was with God and the Word (Logos) was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Someone asked me the other day if God has a name. It's a good question and the one Moses asked God at the burning bush. In Hebrew the answer came back YHWH adapted in English to Jehovah. Literally God's reply is 'I AM' or the verb to be. What emerges is that YHWH, God's personal name is 'I Am who I Am.' God is the eternal being, the source of all existence. If you like God ... IS and that is his name. All time, existence, being, the dynamic movement of the universe are all encompassed in and upheld by 'I AM.' This is an answer to the biggest of questions: is the universe random brute fact or is there a being behind, in and through it all that gives it ultimate meaning and purpose? The Bible throughout says the answer is God, whose name and substance is 'IAM.' Every time you read in the Bible the word LORD this is YHWH, God's personal name.

St John wrote in Greek not Hebrew. That opening sentence has such depth. Logos was his way of writing about the rational principle that governs the universe. It was not a static noun like definition but the meaning and life that runs through the universe and human existence. St Jerome in the 4th century wrote it like this: 'In the beginning was the verb.' 'The Word is the verb and verb is God' wrote Victor Hugo centuries later.

The 'I AM' is the 'Logos,' the 'Verb'. St John continues: The Word (Logos) became flesh and for a while lived among us. Amazingly Jesus claimed to be the 'I AM.' I think the late C. S. Lewis got it right when he wrote that… 'you cannot say simply that Jesus was a good man or a good teacher.' Christmas is about more than celebrating the birth of a person who became a good teacher. Lewis continued 'because he claimed to be God he was either mad like a man who claims to be a poached egg or bad because he is deceived and deceiving or he is who he claims to be, God.' St Matthew gives him the title Immanuel, God with us.

This Christmas why not check out the claims. Who is this child born of Mary? What did he do and say? What might that mean for us?

+Alistair