Week 1—Monday John 1:4-5
John 1:4-5
THE WORD IS THE CHILD OF THE THOUGHT
We saw yesterday that without a word, the thought cannot be expressed. The word is the thought become available. When you get hold of my words, you say: “Now I have hold of his thought.” The words are the thought mediated to us. The words are not a third something standing between you and the thought—they are the thought become available. The one who takes hold of the words takes hold of the thought itself. The word and the thought are one.
Here is the hidden God, and God is expressed through the Word. When you take hold of that Word, you do not take hold of something standing between you and God—that Word, Jesus, is God available. Jesus is not a third person standing between you and God. When you take hold of Jesus, you take hold of God. Jesus is a mediator only in the sense that he mediates God to you. When you know Jesus, you know God. Just as the thought and the word are one, so Jesus could say, “I and the Father are one.”
But the word is the offspring, or child, of the thought. So Jesus is the offspring, or Son, of the Father. And just as the thought is greater than the word, for all expression means limitation—you have to look around to get the right word to express the thought—so the unexpressed God is greater than the expressed God. God had to be limited in coming to us in human form. So Jesus could say, “The Father is greater than I.”
There seems to be a contradiction: “I and the Father are one,” and “The Father is greater than I.” But there is not. Just as the thought and the word are one, so God, the Thought, and Jesus, the Word, are one. But just as the unexpressed thought is greater than the expressed thought, the word, so God the Father, the unexpressed, is greater than God the Son, the expressed. They are one, and yet the Father is greater than the Son. For God was self-limited when God became human.
Did God have to become human to show himself?
O God, our Father, we are at the very crux of our quest—did you have to become human? Help us not to make a misstep here, for we go astray in life if we go astray in thought. May we think your thoughts after you, for we would be your life after you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I offer my mind, my soul, my flesh to reveal God to someone today.