into the world

We arrive at the centre section of the prologue. John 1:10-13.  In a sense this is the crux (for more about this, see the next post, another aside) of the whole piece and tells us clearly what the point is. 

John (our writer, not the Baptiser) is a skilled poetic craftsman; we have just been told that the 'true light was coming into the world' with the word "world" making a connector for us into this new section, where it is the main focus.  Up to now John has been giving us reason to become curious, or even excited, about this person, this being whom he is introducing.  Now he tells us what happened when he came among people; how did other people react to him?

Although he doesn't state this, we can see that he is preparing his readers to respond eventually to having read about this person.  In summarising the response of 'the world' he plants the seed of an idea: I too will have to make up my mind, to make some kind of choice.

So, what did happen?  Well, in short, nothing.
He is the maker of the world, of people, but when he came he was not recognised.  Recognised is a word with two complementary senses:  people didn't even realise who he was and people didn't acknowledge who he was.  Perhaps there is something of both senses in many people, a kind of interweaving: not realising because of an unwillingness to acknowledge and inability to acknowledge because of an unwillingness to see.  Even though he made us.

It goes deeper.  He came into the world, among people.  But he came to people who belonged to him.  Of course everyone belongs to him in the sense that we were all made by him.  However he didn't just pitch up somewhere arbitrary and expect everyone to catch on.  He came into a time and place where there were people who had been prepared over millenia to recognise him.  These people were 'his own' in a special way; yet they too did not receive him.

All this prepares us for a major theme in the narrative to follow: John records for us the enormity of the conflict created by the people who were most versed in the writings which carried the story of God's actions in his world and his words to this people who were meant to recognise him when he came.

This is a point of tension.  John has built up a sense of anticipation:  He came ... we expect wonder and amazement, but what we get is ... nothing.  It all falls flat.

But John opens up a small window for us in the blank wall of non: yet there were some ... some who received, some who believed. 

If we have been reading with responsive attention this will come as a relief, but also it will raise the question for us of what happened then.  If a few people did recognise him, what did he do with them?  Did it make any difference, was it enough?

Something did happen.  But, typical of John, his description of this is somewhat enigmatic, and can leave us wondering what on earth he means.  It sounds wonderful, but ...

These people, the ones who did recognise this person, were given something:  the right ...
We talk a lot about rights these days.  There are human rights, things that the global community has talked about and decided everybody should be given the opportunity to have, or to which everyone should have access.  The idea is that everyone should work together to make sure that everyone else is in a position to have these things.  Consitutions of nations usually confer certain rights on their citizens (sometimes in addition to the basic human rights given to everyone living in the country).  The Roman world was no different, and the different rights of different levels of person within the empire was stark.  Belonging to organizations often confers rights on the members.  The rights, of course, assume parallel privileges, power (or ability) and responsibility otherwise it all breaks down.  Members pay dues and go to meetings if they want to use facilities; citizens uphold the law and pay taxes if they want to use the utilities and stay out of gaol.  The word right is not merely about entitlement, but includes multiple aspects if it is to refer to fully active reality.
... the privilege, the power and the responsibility of becoming children of God.

Well, we all know quite a lot about rights, but the idea of being a child of God is a bit more tricky.  John knows this and he gives us some help, in the form of negatives.  This is not a birth which is determined by others - human decision or a husband choosing.  I don't think, by the way, that John means these two phrases to be different, but rather to be comprehensive ... it is the actions, the choices of humans (not God) and other humans (not the individual themselves) that results in a person being born.  Although one could interpret it as: the choice of a couple to love each other, engage in sexual intercourse and have a child; or even merely a husband forcing his choice on a woman.  It also has nothing to with genetics, which determines so much of our lives - from hair colour to academic chances, from dominant hand to sporting ability.  All the normal determiners are irrelevant here:  the only prior is receiving the person John is introducing.  The result is all to do with God: born of God.

There is no further explanation here.  But the image can take root in our consciousness; a picture of belonging, of family.  We can carry this with us as a question, or maybe simply a quest.

So, why are we talking about the light?

It is as if a piece of the story escapes; it intrudes into the poetry of the prologue and turns out to fit perfectly.  In fact, by this device of an 'extraneous' comment, John gives us the first indication that this is not going to be a Grand Myth, like a Greek tragedy played out only on the stage.  Introducing a human with a name and a history demonstrates that in spite of the cosmic and global implications, this is the report of something that really happened in space and time, with living people.

A person came from God, the same God that we read about a few sentences ago, and he was a real person called John.  (Note:  This is not our John, the one wrting the record; it is the John which the other records call John the Baptiser.  John was a very common name as it is today, and of course they didn't use surnames.)  God sent him for a reason which has to do with the coming of the light, but our writer makes sure we realise that John (the Baptiser) is NOT the light.  Now, this would be an important thing to clarify for anyone who had doubts, but as far as I can see by the time John the Writer was composing his record this was hardly necessary. 

However, it serves to tell us something deeper.  John the Baptiser was a special person because her was sent from God, which is fairly unique.  But he is sent only as a witness concerning the one introduced as the light.  He is meant to make it possible for other people to believe.  This inserts the realisation that this light is every bit as important as we can possibly guess, since God himself sends a person especially to introduce the light!

The interesting thing is we have still not been told that 'the light' is human.  All we know is that this One, who is identified with God (as the Word) is also crucial to the entire human race.  In the mean time, John has sneaked in another word that will be repeatedly part of his narative: "believe".

Okay, the 'sideline' with it's suggestive information is over, and we return to the abstract metaphysics:
This light John designates as the true light; it is the real thing, genuine and authentic, the actual opposite of darkness.  More than that, he describes it as universal; all people have some measure of light, and it is this light.  We begin to realise that for John, everything else can be considered darkness. 

Now, right at the end of this section, when we have already been given so much that will reverberate in our minds, only now are we told the key to the whole story:  this light was coming into the world.  And so now we are aware of what the fuss is about.

Just in time to move into a section where the whole metaphor of light is completely ignored!

light and life (part two)

Most languages and cultures use the image of light in metaphors built into the language, and most philosophies (whether religion or ideology) use it too.  In English we use "enlightenment", in both technical and non-technical senses, when we are referring to a movement from superstition to actual understanding, or for new attitudes emerging from recognition of new information.  The same word is used in Buddhism and many new age religions to describe the major spiritual change offered to the diligent disciple.  More mundane examples: it dawned on me = I realised, we often cartoon a idea as a light bulb.


So John now puts the light in a context: darkness, of course.  The whole point of light is that it shines in the darkness and stops it being dark.
John never tells us what the light means, and there are all sorts of pronouncements as to what precisely he intends.  But, if someone uses an image it is usually because the idea is too rich for more precise ways of describing it.  We are not meant to define the light; at this point we are meant to get a picture inside us that will keep popping up to make us wonder about this person who will be the subject of the narrative.  In a sense, the more the image bounces around in our heads creating resonances, the better for John's purpose.  This is poetry, not systematic analysis.

But, that doesn't mean that John doesn't tell us anything about the light.  It doesn't mean that I can take the image and turn it to my own purposes. 

John elaborates by extending the image:  "The light shines in the darkness ..."  It is obvious in a silly way, but this is important.  Light is not darkness, it dissapates darkness.  This goes further in that the darkness has not overcome/understood the light.  In most translations one of these two words occurs in the text, and the other in a footnote, because the Greek word is ambiguous; it means both. We shouldn't try to work out which is the meaning here, but should discover the vitality of both meanings held together.  (We have two English words that give a similar feel: comprehend - to understand or to surround and limit; grasp - to understand or to hold onto and not let go.)  Darkness is helpless with respect to light.  It has no hold on light, it can't limit light, it can't stop light, it can't even 'understand' light.  John shows us that we are not talking about two equal entities or qualities, a sort of ying and yang that are both necessary and must be balanced, held together, and even mixed.  Darkness is not light, and ultimately cannot co-exist with it. 

Now we have this explosive graphic idea in our minds, John breaks off for his little piece of story ...

light and life (part one)

In this next part of John's prologue (before-word) we get introduced to more of his abstract style, his unique words and his creative imagery.

John 1:4-9
John loves to use convolution in the way he organises the material he is presenting.  Not for him the linear logical progression or the chronological narative movement.  Here we see this in the way he uses an elipsis of thought; that is, the main thing he is telling us is interupted by an aside which complements it.
The main part is abstract cosmic/global imagery which tells us more about the One he is introducing. (verses 4,5&9)  The secondary part introduces us to John (the Baptiser) and is almost narrative.  (verses 6-8)
We will see this technique again in the fourth section of the prologue, and then several times as we explore the main narative flow of John.

As John continues his masterful manipulation of words (see previous post) here, we are introduced also to another of his quirks.  There are a number of words which are unevenly but repeatedly sprinkled though his story; these words partly work as connectors to carry us through the narative.  However they also serve to carry meaning from one section to another gradually interlinking disparate events to create, possibly without his readers even realising it, the abstract picture he wishes to leave us with.

The Life, The Light
The two words which John uses here are "life" and "light", ad we will encounter both of these again in key moments in John's record.  He is still telling us about "the Word", but he never uses that appelation again, except for once in the fourth section of the prologue.  From now on, until we are well into the introductory stories, this person is mainly refered to by pronouns.

"In him was life..." John has already told us that nothing was created without him, but now he gets more intense; not only did he make all 'stuff', but life (so much more than mere matter, as we all experience, even as we try to make it in the laboratory) was in him.  He didn't just make it, that was 'all things'; he has life or perhaps in a manner of speaking is life (as he himself will say later).  However it is phrased, John is clear that life is initimately connected with this person.  Later, as he repeatedly uses the word, we will discover his plan to invest this idea with a deeper and richer meaning than we normally afford it.  But even here, in identifying 'that life' as 'the light of all people', John gives us a clue that there is more involved than we might expect.  For anyone familiar with Genesis, already recalled by the first phrase of John's writing, there could be a connection set up with Genesis 2 which refers to God beathing the 'breath of life' into the nostrils of the person he had formed.

Now we are introduced (this is after all the prologue, and it is so carefully crafted that every sentence has something new in it) to yet another word: "light".  This word will resonate though the rest of John's work (and his other works as well) as much or more than the word "life".  Light is metaphorical and is identified with 'that life'.
Of course, for readers familiar with the Jewish Scriptures and the words 'in the beginning' still in their minds, the light recalls the first recorded command of God in Genesis 1:  "Let there be light."  In identifying light with life John moves into the symbolic world. And now for the first time he introduces people because this life, his life, is the light of all people (see next post).  So now we know that we are talking in philosophical pictures.

 ... to be continued

 

cosmic prologue

Before he even gets to the introduction, John gives us a startling glance at the cosmic origins and implications of the narrative which we are about to read.    

John 1:1-18
He starts with pre-space and non-time; he uses multidimensional images; he moves through the enitire world of being human; and he imagines seeing God.  But in this telescopic whirlwind of transcendence, John places two small ellipses (like this, in brackets, only Greek doesn't have brackets) which prepare us as readers for the sudden entry into tangible history which will happen in the next sentence.

It really is a glance - less than half a page when the rest of his account is 25 pages.  At the end of his account, there is a corresponding epilogue after the conclusion.  It is even more brief, at only one sentence!

It is almost as if John wants us to be ready to assess his narrative in the cosmic context, but he wants Jesus' life to speak for him.  So he primes us, but then never comes back to force the issue.

There are five short sub-paragraphs:
1:1-3      The Word
1:4-9      The Light (ellipsis 1:6-8 John the Witness)
1:10-13  Receiving
1:14-17  Grace and Truth (ellipsis 1:15 The Witness of John)
1:18       Revealing God

So this poetic prologue is gigantic in scope, and quite monstrous in significance.  We'll take a look at it section by section before we allow John to gently place us into less bewildering surroundings, into the world of everyday people.