Talk by Chris Sayers on Sunday 24 January 2021
I have been reflecting recently on the power of words. Words are important. Something that has been reinforced this year. We have been reminded that words have power – they have the power to inspire, they have the power to incite. They have no physical substance yet they can have impact, they can cause pain but they can also heal, give hope and love. They can make people do and feel things. And there were 3 things recently that have made me think about this – the first was the mis-use of words from Trump which led to death and chaos a couple of weeks ago, which reinforced for me how careful we have to be with words. The second was a remarkable interview with Clemency Burton-Hill – a well known broadcaster and journalist who, this time last year, suffered a massive brain bleed which resulted in her being in a coma for 17 days, at the end of which she couldn’t move or speak, despite understanding everything that was going on and what was being said to her. This was an unusually articulate person who loves language, so to be robbed of it was just about the worst thing for her, and she has had to learn to speak again – she only started speaking 8 weeks ago and she gave the most remarkable interview, and it made me think of the value of the spoken word, how much we rely on it, how important it is. And then finally there was that remarkable poem delivered by Amanda Gorman – the 22 yr old youth poet laureate, at Jo Biden’s inauguration. If you didn’t see it, then please watch it, it is remarkable, and if you ever doubted the power of words then this would change your mind.
It starts with a question ..
“When day comes we ask ourselves
Where can we find light in this never ending shade?”
And 5 mins later it ends by answering the question posed at the beginning……
“When day comes we step out of the shade,
Aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
If only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we are brave enough to be it”
Powerful words indeed.
Amanda Gorman gave a Ted talk 2 years ago – she was 20, and she was talking about “using your voice is a political choice” Its really good and worth listening to, but it was a reaction from her when she was told that she shouldn’t make political poems. Her reply was that poetry, and words are intrinsically political because they are about people. However, it was what she says about the power of words that I want think about as the starting point for tonight’s talk.
She makes the point that it is the openness, and the accessibility of poetry that makes it the language of people. She points out that Poetry has never been the language of barriers, it has always been the language of bridges, and it is this connection-making that makes poetry powerful, yes, but also political (with a small p) because poems have the phenomenal potential to connect the thoughts of the private individual with the cause of change, and the most important issues of the time.
And that is the true power of words, not just informing but communicating ideas. Only humans have this ability, animals obviously communicate but not to same extent or in the same way. People have words that can inspire people to change, for good or for ill. Words can also reveal what is in the heart and “they show who we are (Matt 12:34) “For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.” That’s why words spoken by someone with power can wound, or create violence, or do good. Words make things happen, as articulated by the Centurion who came looking for Jesus’s help in Luke 7 and Matt 8 – he said that Jesus only had to say the word and it would be done, and he knew this, because he was a man who understood what authority was. Say the word and it will be done. So the word is also a trigger for action, if it is associated with authority.
And in the context of all that, I was thinking about the start to John’s Gospel. The word became flesh. What does this mean? And what word are we talking about?
Jesus the Word – a name attributed to Jesus
Truth is that we don’t really know what John meant by this – there are theories, but it’s not exactly clear what John was intending with this. It certainly sounds highly profound, and we can get messages from it, but the original intent isn’t actually clear. Certainly, it would have been interpreted differently by different audiences, and it has different meanings depending on the audience, because the term word is used in different ways in the Bible.
In the New Testament, there are two Greek words translated “word”: rhema and logos. They have slightly different meanings. Rhema usually means “a spoken word.” For example, in Luke 1:38, when the angel told Mary that she would be the mother of God’s Son, Mary replied, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word [rhema].”
However, the term used in John 1, is Logos, which also means the spoken word. So really, it says, in the beginning was the utterance.
The Greeks, used this term not only to describe the spoken word, but also to describe the unspoken word, so logos for them also referred to one’s “mind,” “reason,” or “wisdom.” And when they applied Logos to the universe, they meant the rational principle that governs all things.
The Jews, on the other hand, used the word Logos as a way of referring more directly to God, specifically because it has this broader, more philosophical meaning which for them usually implied a total message, and is used mostly in reference to God’s message to mankind. For example, Luke 4:32 says that, when Jesus taught the people, “they were amazed at his teaching, because his words [logos] had authority.” The people were amazed not merely by the particular words Jesus chose but by His total message. And, further in the Old Testament, the word of God brought the universe into existence (Psalm 33:6 “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.”) and God saved the needy (Psalm 107:20 “He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction“).
So, John used both the Greek and Jewish concepts simultaneously to communicate the fact that Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, is indeed the self-expression of God to the world. In chapter 1 of his Gospel, John is appealing to both Jew and Gentile to recognise that Jesus is Christ.
What does it mean, to be the word?
“The Word” (Logos) in John 1 is clearly referring to Jesus. Jesus is the total Message—everything that God wants to communicate to mankind.
So let’s think about Logos – the spoken word. Spoken Words, rather than written words have more power, they communicate more. They are inextricably linked to the speaker, whereas written words can be anonymous and standalone. But the spoken word has context, and the context is who is speaking and why. The Spoken word was the word of our God. As in Genesis, God’s first spoken words were those of creation – let there be light. In John1 1-3, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. Completely interlinked and united, and going back to the beginning of all things. And at the creation, we have the word bringing Light and Life into being. In Genesis 1, everything is brought into existence through the spoken word “let there be light”. There is profound truth in the picture painted in Genesis, but we need to be careful not to be too literal here as it ties us up into knots. This was a moment before there was anything or anyone, and yet God is described as speaking. Speaking into a vacuum achieves nothing, there is no sound, and even if there was, there was no one to hear, as the only audience was God himself. So why this emphasis on the spoken words? What’s the point? There is another aspect of this at work that is worth understanding as it helps us understand John 1 better too. That is that Words also express the Will of the person speaking. If, as we have already discussed, the speaker has authority and power, then the words express that and make their will happen. So, here, at the beginning of all things, the words are the mechanism for making God’s will happen, the Word of God is the expression and vehicle of God’s will. And in John 1, we have Jesus being described as the flesh and blood expression of God’s will on earth – personified. The Word is the expression of God’s will.
Jesus said that he was here to do the will of the one who had sent him (to be his word on Earth) (John 6.38). And it is underlined in Gethsemane, where Jesus re-commits to only be there to do God’s will and nothing else, regardless of what it means to him.
Now John is very clearly saying that the WORD here is Jesus – v 14, the word was God and became flesh and made his dwelling among us. But by calling Jesus the Word, and more than that, the WORD of God, he gives Jesus this remarkable badge, or name. It struck me that this opening chapter of John is as much about names as it is about the Word.
Names are important words, they have meaning
Names are important, they should stand for something. When we introduce ourselves, we want our name to be synonymous with what we stand for and traditionally you would have been able to tell a lot about a person by their name.
True also in the bible.
It is common in the Hebrew Scriptures when first introducing a name to present the etymology of the name as well: Gen 16:11b – “…And you shall call his name Ishmael, Because the LORD [Yahweh] has given heed to your affliction;” Gen 25:25 – “Now the first came forth red, all over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau;” Gen 25:26 – “Afterward his brother came forth with his hand holding on to Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob;” Ex 2:10b – “And she named him Moses, and said, ‘Because I drew him out of the water’.”
But here in the first chapter of John, we are finding a new name for Jesus, and actually, when it comes to God, names are not disclosed that easily, cf Jacob wrestling with God all night, and what he wants is God’s name, but God won’t disclose it. Instead, he gives Jacob another name, Isreal. So when a name for God is disclosed, it is very important. And it’s the same with Moses when he is talking to God, he is fixated on what God’s name is.
Exodus 3:14.
The account of the burning bush, God is giving Moses this great task to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and Moses is there asking God what his name is? So what is that so important to Moses?
We have to remember the context, Moses and all of the Israelites had been born and raised in Egypt, surrounded by the name and faces of the Gods that the Egyptians worshipped and believed in. They were surrounded by temples dedicated to deities with faces, bodies, birth stories, and death stories. Most significantly, they had names and dominion over certain aspects of life. For example, the goddess Isis had dominion over women, children, and medicine. Her name identified her with specific characteristics, and she held sway only over a few elements of life.
So when Moses asks who should he say is speaking to the people, it’s a bit of a natural question. A name is important for Moses. It tells him about who he is talking to. But, the answer is not what Moses expects.
So Moses says: May I say who sent me? He asks for God’s name. The reply is “I am who I am”, but owing to the peculiarities of Hebrew grammar, the word used means “I am”, but it also means “I was”, and “I will be”, or “I will become what I choose to become”, or “I will be what I will be”, or “I create what(ever) I create”, or “I am the Existing One”. The traditional English translation within Judaism actually favours “I will be what I will be” because there is no present tense of the verb “to be” in the Hebrew language.
So it’s not a name in a descriptive sense. It is a statement of fact, of being, of existence, but it is also a promise – a promise that He would become what they would need Him to become.
And what did God need to become? He needed to become a man, in the shape of Jesus, to be their deliverer. So in the beginning was the Word, in the beginning was God, who would become what he needed to become, and here he was, in the shape of Jesus, the word made flesh – so no longer “I will become what I will become” but now “I Am” and that I AM was life and that life was the light to the world. This is God’s promise to Moses coming true.
God will become what they need Him to become – which is an architect for the plan of salvation that will bring them back into harmony with Him.
So we have Gods name – I am, I will become = everything we need and will ever need.
We have Jesus’ name – The Word – instrumental in creation, instrumental in life, the Word is the reason, The word is the essence God, and the total message of salvation
And I said that John’s opening chapter is also about names, I’ll just explain my thought. We start with this name for Jesus, then in V 6 we have a man named John (In Hebrew, the meaning of the name John is: Jehovah has been gracious; has shown favour), then in V.12 it comes to a name for us – John 1:12 “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God”, and in 1 john 3 “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
So our name, like Jacob’s, is changed – and what a name, Child of God. And further it says that our names are written in Heaven Rev 3:5 “The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels.”
So what’s in this for us?
I think the lesson for us is about connection
God’s word and name – it means that He is completely almighty, the creator of love and life
Jesus is inextricably linked to God – and his name is the expression of God’s Will to bring love, life and light to earth
We are given this wonderful new name because of him – children of God – not slaves, not servants, not subjects, but family.
Which is an entirely different relationship (or connection) with the great, all providing God, who sees things from a completely different perspective to our limited one yet he still gives the promise of “I will be whatever you need” and who is a God of now (I am) and forever (I will be).
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