How do you describe the indescribable? How do you explain the unexplainable? It is beyond our capabilities, to be honest. It escapes us. And yet we try. We see a glorious sunset and we want to describe to someone who wasn’t there. We wax eloquent about hues and shading, about cloud formations and transitions, and when we are done they say “sounds nice.” Nice? we think, nice? It was mind blowing, heart stopping. And you think it was nice?
Tell them about a landscape you saw, or a concert you heard. Tell them about an intimate moment with the love of your life, and if you are lucky they will smile and say “nice.” Or something equally deflating. Because it doesn’t transfer. You can’t recapture the moment and pass it on to someone else. No matter how good you are with words, you can’t describe the sight you saw or the experience you experienced in a way that transfers it into someone else’s mind and heart.
The best you can hope for is that the description you provide allows them to recall a similar sight or moment in their own life. Association sometimes works. They can say, well, I remember a sunset I saw from my cabin on the coast, it was ... And then your eyes glaze over as you begin to think, it couldn’t possibly be as spectacular as the one I just saw. You can’t describe the indescribable.
So, have some sympathy for John. He is trying to give us the essence of the Christmas story. He doesn’t want to tell us the surface of the event, like Matthew and Luke. They were interested in happenings, in personalities. Who said what when and where. They are like journalists. Which, though complicated - which is why their stories are so different - it is still easier than what John sets out to do.
John wants us to see the grandeur of this sunset - or sunrise, which might be a bit more descriptive. He wants us to understand the nuance of the symphony that God has composed and conducted and played in our presence. Wants us to not just hear the notes, but to follow the story, to see beneath the surface into the intentions and purposes, the meanings and the applications. He wants us to not just see the landscape, but to be a part of it. To stand in awe of it even as we walk through it, abide in it.
So, of course he falls back on poetry. Of course he sings a song, he tells a story. There aren’t enough facts, there isn’t enough reality to contain a thesis on incarnation. Instead we get this.
John 1:1-18 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'") 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.
And I couldn’t have said it better myself.
The only way I know to say this same thing with even simpler words is this: Merry Christmas.
Shalom,
Derek
Tell them about a landscape you saw, or a concert you heard. Tell them about an intimate moment with the love of your life, and if you are lucky they will smile and say “nice.” Or something equally deflating. Because it doesn’t transfer. You can’t recapture the moment and pass it on to someone else. No matter how good you are with words, you can’t describe the sight you saw or the experience you experienced in a way that transfers it into someone else’s mind and heart.
The best you can hope for is that the description you provide allows them to recall a similar sight or moment in their own life. Association sometimes works. They can say, well, I remember a sunset I saw from my cabin on the coast, it was ... And then your eyes glaze over as you begin to think, it couldn’t possibly be as spectacular as the one I just saw. You can’t describe the indescribable.
So, have some sympathy for John. He is trying to give us the essence of the Christmas story. He doesn’t want to tell us the surface of the event, like Matthew and Luke. They were interested in happenings, in personalities. Who said what when and where. They are like journalists. Which, though complicated - which is why their stories are so different - it is still easier than what John sets out to do.
John wants us to see the grandeur of this sunset - or sunrise, which might be a bit more descriptive. He wants us to understand the nuance of the symphony that God has composed and conducted and played in our presence. Wants us to not just hear the notes, but to follow the story, to see beneath the surface into the intentions and purposes, the meanings and the applications. He wants us to not just see the landscape, but to be a part of it. To stand in awe of it even as we walk through it, abide in it.
So, of course he falls back on poetry. Of course he sings a song, he tells a story. There aren’t enough facts, there isn’t enough reality to contain a thesis on incarnation. Instead we get this.
John 1:1-18 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'") 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.
And I couldn’t have said it better myself.
The only way I know to say this same thing with even simpler words is this: Merry Christmas.
Shalom,
Derek
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