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The Explanation (7)
1Before the universe began to be,
and all that it consists of and contains,
the Word already was. He is the Power,
the Explanation, and the Reason for
all things. He was before all things with God,
and He was God. 2Yes, He was with God when
the universe and all that is began
to be, 3and He created everything.
Apart from Him, without His will and power,
not anything that has been made was made.
4In Him was life, eternal life, the light
of men, 5which shines into the darkness to
expose unrighteousness with grace and truth,
and show the way to life. And darkness has
not overcome it, no, nor ever shall.
6God sent a man named John. 7He came to be
a witness to the Light, that all who heard
him might renounce unrighteous ways, and through
the Light believe. 8This John was not the Light;
he came to testify about the Light
and to prepare the way before Him.
- John 1.1-8
A life of preparations
Life is full of preparations. We make them every day.
Seems like we’re always preparing for something. Our preparations bear witness to two things: First, something important is going to happen and we need to be ready. I’m going to work, so I need to get ready for the day. I’m going on a date, so I need to make a reservation. A storm is coming; I need to get out the snow shovel and buy some salt. And so on.
It might surprise us to realize that, in some very important ways, our entire lives are but a series of preparations. We prepare for work because we want to do a good job. We work hard as preparation for enjoying the good things of life. We enjoy the good things of life to prepare for the peace and contentment we desire. We want to enjoy peace and contentment as preparation for the rest of our lives beyond work. And so on.
We’re always preparing, getting ready for or moving toward those unseen promises that motivate and direct our lives.
So, second, our preparations say something about what matters most to us. Every preparation, in every area of life, feeds into activities which are themselves preparations for something higher, something unseen and important, at least, to us. So what we actually do in our preparations says something about what we believe or hope, what promises we cling to as of most importance. What we most believe is what we will prepare for in life.
Every day, all day long, we’re preparing to do, doing as preparation, moving forward toward our promises, and then tomorrow we do it all again.
All in faith, in the belief that our promises are important, are the right and best ones for us.
Life is a big deal. You have to prepare well for it. Everybody knows that.
Preparation for the Light
“God sent a man named John.” John the Baptist, that strange, urgent man preaching down by the riverside, appeared as part of God’s preparations for the coming of the Light. He was not the only preparation, but he was one.
Indeed, without some of the other preparations, John’s work of preparation might not have had the desired effect.
The world was prepared for the coming of the Light, the Explanation of all things, by having drifted into an era of oppression, confusion, uncertainty, and fear. The Roman Empire was a source of many good things, chief among them the celebrated Roman Peace. But that Peace came at a high cost. The Empire was a political and military force of brutal, uncompromising will, and it sustained a totalitarian world-system with the Emperor as absolute authority at the center of everything. People had to sublimate their highest hopes and dreams to the expectations and regulations of Roman power. They could believe what they wanted, as long as they paid ultimate obeisance to the Emperor. They could enjoy life to the fullest, except, of course, for whatever Roman taxation or whim might require. They could consider themselves a free people, as long as they toed whatever line the Roman authorities drew in the dirt on any particular day.
They could prepare to live each day to the fullest, as long as Roman preparations didn’t require them to go here, do that, forfeit something precious, or otherwise interfere with their hopes and dreams.
In short, the people to whom John the Baptist came in order to prepare the way for the Light were already prepared, to some extent, for something other than the life they currently knew. Many, perhaps most, of the people to whom John came preaching may have had a sense, based on their history as a people, that God was not pleased with them for some reason, that He had allowed the iron grip of Rome to settle on them as some kind of discipline or corrective. Whatever, the Roman presence throughout Palestine had served to prepare the hearts of the people of Israel for something different. And John the Baptist came to further clarify the preparation needed for the coming of the Light.
I suspect many people today are wondering about what the world is being prepared for – why all this economic and political turmoil, these changing morals, this declining civility, widespread ennui and apathy and indifference? What are we doing to our environment? How can we keep ourselves safe from terror? How do you prepare for any of this uncertainty? To what is all this leading? Will the preparations the world is making get in the way of the preparations I make for life as I want to live it?
The word of preparation
As difficult and uncertain as life under the Roman boot may have been, John understood that an even greater threat loomed – the coming of the Light. When He came the Light would expose all that was dark, secret, immoral, shameful, wicked, and indecent. And those in whom such darkness dwelled would not welcome the Light or be ready for Him. They needed someone to give them a heads-up.
How John knew this we aren’t told. “God sent” John, and, however He accomplished that, the instructions must have been included so that John wouldn’t have to guess about his mission or just do whatever felt right for him.
John’s message to the people who came out to see and hear him was that they needed to repent of their unrighteous ways and embrace a new orientation to life. John’s was very much an “if the shoe fits” kind of message. But the fact that so many people came out to him, from all over the land of Judea and elsewhere, to be baptized in the Jordan River suggests that a great many people were sensible, deep inside, that things were not entirely “in sort” in their lives.
What kind of “unrighteous ways” had these people been practicing? Lying to one another? Cheating one another? Informing on their neighbors? Lusting or coveting for someone or something? Wishing ill toward their neighbors? Harboring anger against the Romans or against the religious leaders of the day? Compromising their moral convictions? Doubts? Fears? Hidden and sinful acts, thoughts, or aspirations?
We don’t know. But whatever the “Light” was, which John insisted was coming, these folks were not ready to have Him shine on them.
So they needed to prepare. They came to John to get ready. Get ready for the coming of the Light, the Light which not even the dark days of Roman oppression would be able to overcome.
For the coming of the Light was itself a preparation for a new day, a day unlike the world had never known. A day in which the coming of the Light is a relentless, ineluctable reality, for which those who live in darkness need to prepare.
T. M. Moore
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