Sermon on John 1:1-14 | Allison Zbicz Michael |

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light. The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:1-14 [RSV]

Much of what popular wisdom says about Mother’s intuition is malarkey. Oh, there’s something to it. There is a way that deep love allows people to see and read and understand each other even when no words are spoken. Any caregiver who spends a lot of time with a child gradually learns about how often she needs to eat. A mother might come to expect when the next diaper change will be. A father will learn that his son gets irritable when he gets too hot. There may be some measure of intuition going on there. Some mothers may be able to tell a hungry cry from a sleepy cry. Others may be able to read something in the tiny gestures and expressions.

But every person who spends time caring for infants will one day face a bout of wailing that is not so obviously solved. Try a bottle. No? Try burping him. Maybe he doesn’t like the song playing on the radio—change the station. Or maybe we just need a fan for some white noise. Could it be an ear infection? Maybe the tag in his shirt is bothering him. The rocking chair may help. Or the stroller could do the trick. Last Thursday, he stopped crying when I made funny faces, but the week before it only made him cry harder. Finally, hours later, his exhausted sobs turn to quiet snores. You make a mental note that walking him up and down the hallway did the trick, when you know full well that you never did figure out what he needed, that his sleep was much more a product of frustrated weariness than of parental wisdom. You collapse into a chair, counting the days until this tiny child will learn to speak.  Sometimes intuition and non-verbal communication just doesn’t cut it.

If facial expressions were sufficient forms of communication, no parent would ever endure the mystifying bouts of crying or crabbiness. If nonverbal communication was all we needed, humans would likely never have developed the capacity for speech.  In the words of one medieval theologian, if we “had an ear for the speech of the heart, then we would have no need for the speech of the mouth.” [1] We yearn for Words, for good words that allow us to see into one another’s hearts and minds, which help us to meet one another’s needs and live in ever-deeper relationships with one another. Children labor to lean the words which will allow them to communicate more fully.  The flourishing of human community and human life relies on words because, for good or for ill, our words reveal to others something important about us.  If we speak lies, the words reveal a deception in our hearts. If we speak of beauty or joy, of patience or of love, it says something about our desires, about our will, about who we hope to be. The words we speak originate in our hearts, and our intentions will become clear by the words we say. Our words reveal our hearts and minds.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 

So what does it mean, then, when we read in John’s prologue that: Jesus is the Word of God? Jesus is yet a nonverbal baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger—how can he be the Word of God? While I have my doubts about Away in a Manger’s assertion that “no crying he makes,” we can be sure that whatever sounds the infant Jesus was making, he most certainly wasn’t speaking to Mary and Joseph in iambic pentameter.  Luke’s gospel is very clear that he was a baby—with all that it entails. And part of what it is to be an infant is the helplessness of total dependence on others, and the inability to speak or to care for oneself. Cries or not, we are told that this speechless baby is the Word of God.

How can this be? How can a baby be the Word of God if He makes no eloquent speeches? He can only be the Word of God because words are more than just the sounds of the vibrations echoing in a voice box. Words are the revelation of the heart of the one who speaks them. That is exactly what the person of Jesus is. God is giving us, in Jesus, the “speech of the heart,” the most direct line to God’s own desires for us. Some things will become clearer when this child grows into maturity and can speak with the Words of the mouth, but so much of who God is can already be deciphered in this, the Silent Word.

Jesus is the Word of God because he is the One who alone reveals the intentions of the Father’s heart and mind. Jesus is the One who reveals the depths of the Father’s love, the One who flows from the fountain of wisdom and mercy.  The truest Word God could speak to His people was not in the voice of an eloquent prophet. It was not a symphony or a poem or a disembodied voice from heaven.  To be sure, one day Jesus would grow and teach his followers many things about God and the Kingdom of God.  He would tell them of faith. He would preach about the blessedness of the poor and the poor in Spirit. He would teach about humility and service and about self-giving  Love. His words would one day become the most quoted words in the history of the World.

But the intentions of God’s heart were revealed first in a baby who would be, not only in spoken-words, but in his flesh and bones, the self-giving Love of God. How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given. For God imparts to human hearts the blessing of his heaven. It was God’s own Son, a baby of humble beginnings, speechless, poor, helpless, empty who sang the Father’s song. In his newborn wails, he spoke from the heart of God. His very speechless existence in the cradle proclaimed solidarity with the fallen human condition, with helplessness, with poverty, with discomfort and pain, with blood and death. It preached the vindication of the helpless. It preached to a hurting world a God who is not distant and afar off, but a God who is committed to enter into human suffering and redeem it.  He preached from the manger about the blessedness of the poor and the poor in Spirit. Surrounded by Jews and Gentiles, shepherds and kings, he revealed a God who loved the whole world, especially those who were not loved by the world. He proclaimed the infinite value of all human life as Mary and Joseph cradled him in their arms. He showed God’s own humility and self-giving love. The sweeping plan of salvation history, past, present and future, was all there in his eyes. At the birth of Jesus, we discover this: This is a God who not only shares the desires of his heart with the world through the Word-Made-Flesh.  In Jesus, He gives the world his very own beating-heart.

How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given. For God imparts to human hearts the blessing of his heaven. May you meet in this tiny, speechless Child, the deepest love of God’s heart.

[1] Richard of St. Victor, On the Trinity, Chapter 12, p 331
“Is it not the case, I ask, that you had not been able to utter a word, which you utter with your mouth, unless you would have first possessed it in your heart through thinking? And when a spoken word has been understood by a listener, is it not the case that the same word that was first in your heart begins to exist in his heart?”

Rev. Allison Zbicz Michael
Seward, NY
E-Mail: zbiczmichael@gmail.com