Commentary on John 1:[1-9], 10-18

There is no infancy narrative, no temptation in the wilderness, not even a baptism. Instead, the mystical poetry of John’s prologue opens with the story of creation and the Word in whom is life. In the half of the prologue suggested by the lectionary for this Sunday before Epiphany, the Word-light pitches God’s tent of glory in the beloved and dangerous world and makes visible humanity’s true nature as the place where fullness of joy joins in the eternal, swirling dance of divine love.

Because the prologue is poetic and mystical, it moves us in a way that transcends thought. The glory of the Synoptic angels and star is expanded into a view from before time into forever. Then the “we” of 1:14 draws us into this cosmic love story of God and the world and every human in it.  

At the same time, the prologue offers us a portrait of this Gospel in nuce, so one way to enter its poetry and find there an infinity of sermons is to encounter it as a window into the world of this Gospel and let the Gospel unfold the prologue as the prologue opens the Gospel to us.

As our passage begins, the prologue moves from the preexistent Word of creation to the incarnate Word in the world, where this true light is not known and not accepted.  

The Word and the world

The word for “world,” kosmos, occurs 78 times in John (and only 15 times in the three Synoptics combined). The most famous verse in John tells of God’s love for the world (3:16). But the world is also a place of persecution (16:33), hatred (15:19), and ignorance (1:10; 17:25), and the ruler of this world will come for Jesus (14:30). Still, Jesus has been sent into the world to save it (3:17) and to testify in it to the truth (18:37), and he does not want his friends to be removed from it, only to be protected from the evil one in it (17:15). He wants the world to know what it does not know (17:23), and his opponents fear that the world will follow him (12:19).  

Even when the ruler of this world seems to have prevailed, the lifting-up of crucifixion will lead to that one’s demise (12:31–32) and to the eternal lifting-up of resurrection and ascension and the giving of another Advocate, the Spirit of truth, to empower, teach, and guide the friends of Jesus into their own testimony in the world (15:26–27; 16:7–15).  

The world’s final appearance in the Gospel is in its final verse, where the story of the incarnation of God’s love is revealed to be so much larger than what is written here that if it were all written down, the world itself could not contain it.

Conflict and love

While the unknowing world and the Word’s own community within it reject him, some receive him and believe in his name. The rhythm of conflict and glory, rejection by most and acceptance by a few (6:66–71), shapes the narrative of the Gospel. Already in John 2 the glory of the Cana wine is followed by the first Passover conflict in the temple. Finally, after repeated spontaneous attempts to stone Jesus (8:59; 10:31), it is his raising of Lazarus, whom he loves, from the dead that triggers the decision of the religious authorities to execute him (11:50–53). 

But before the final rejection of the passion, Jesus prepares his friends, in five chapters of comfort and teaching and prayer, for the continued glory and resistance to come, when those who have become “his own” (13:1) will continue to testify. They, and the ones who will believe in him through their word (17:20), are given power to become children of God, born from above (3:3–8) into a new perspective on the world, grounded in the love of the Father and Son, in which they also abide and which they demonstrate in their love for one another (13:34–35; 15:9–17).    

Glory and flesh

In 1:14, the children of God become a still more intimate “we” who have seen the glory of the Word-made-flesh living among them. And we also see the glory and are drawn into the abiding love of Father and Son with them, through their testimony (17:20–24; 20:29–31) and the presence of the Spirit (14:26; 16:13–14).

The verb for “lived” in 1:14 is based on the noun for “tabernacle” or “tent.” This evokes the tabernacle in which the glory of God dwells with the Israelites in the wilderness (Exodus 25:8; 40:34), and it points forward to the coming of God in Revelation 21:3, where this verb appears again. The word for “tent” or “tabernacle” appears in the Synoptic accounts of the Transfiguration, when the disciples see the glory of Jesus in conversation with Moses and Elijah. In John 1:14, the glory of the Word is fully present and vulnerable in flesh, a word that encompasses all of what it means to be human, but because this remains the life-giving Word, he is also full of grace and truth.

Testimony and truth

Here, the testimony of John the Baptist interrupts the prologue. The word for “testify” occurs 33 times in John (twice in all the Synoptics combined). A trial motif, introduced already in 1:7–8, will be taken up immediately after the prologue with the testimony of John and will conclude only in the Gospel’s final verse with a reference to the testimony of the disciple whom Jesus loved, which is the Gospel itself. 

“We” testify (3:11). The Samaritan woman testifies (4:39). The Father testifies (8:18). The works that Jesus does testify (5:36; 10:25). The scripture testifies (5:39). The crowd testifies (12:17). The Spirit of truth (the Paraclete, a legal term) continues to testify (15:26). “You,” including us, are to testify (15:27).

This testimony occurs in a narrative in which the truth is contested. While Jesus not only knows the truth but is so full of truth that he is the truth (14:6), he testifies in a world where the most powerful do not know what truth is and, therefore, cannot recognize it when it is staring them in the face (18:38). But even betrayed and persecuted, the Word-Son remains full of grace (curbing any inclination we might have to use truth as a cudgel). 

Jesus’ truth gives comfort and courage to the dismayed and grief-stricken (14:1–17:26; 20:11–28) and confronts those with the power to harm him—even when what might make them free instead makes them murderous. No matter what the confused world does, the response of the Word is glory, grace, love, and life.

The uncontainableness of love

The prologue concludes with a return to the union of God and the Word (1:1), expressed now as the love of Father and Son, a relationship echoed in the intimacy of Jesus and the disciple whom he loves (13:23). He makes Jesus known in his testimony (21:24), as the Son makes the Father known.

All those receiving his testimony, which is the Gospel itself, are also drawn into the lyrical, mystical love story of God. We also find ourselves there, sent into the world to love and to testify to the truth, which is not merely whispered in our ear but dwells in us in the form of the Paraclete. We also are fueled by the love in which we dwell as branches of the vine Jesus. We also deliver our holy piece of the infinite testimony, which is more grace, truth, and love than the world itself can contain.  

This uncontainableness of the Word-light-life, which we feel washing over us in the prologue and which fills us with love for the world—this is what we carry from Christmas into the light of Epiphany as our new year begins.