"the story"

Over the past several years this website has allowed me the opportunity to share with you a number of insights that have come from my study and meditation on various books in Scripture. Most of this has been published in a dozen or so paperbacks.
      What I would like to do now is to walk with Jesus through his life here on earth as he tells it in the gospel harmony, Jesus, In His Own Words. I will journal my responses along the way. Hopefully you will find them both instructive and helpful. Your response via the comment section would be appreciated. 


 
When you turn to the Prologue of the gospel of John you are met with an outstanding statement: “Before anything else existed the Word already was – I am that Word” (All quotes are from Jesus, In His Own Word). It is critically important to understand that the story of God’s redemptive mission in time and space assumes another and totally different sphere  was nothing, and that includes empty space, the “Word already was,” and that “Word” was the pre-incarnate Son of God.
       What strikes me is that if you want to take the story seriously you have to accept the fact that you can’t fully understand it. To be before anything was defies logic. The apparent time sequence asks you to move ahead with a narrative that begins with a logical impossibility. If nothing existed how could something exist? We won’t linger on this, but I simply wanted to point out that to read The Story you have to let go of a this-world-only mindset and be open to the incomprehensible unknown.
       In the verses that follow this initial declaration, the Word, that is, the one who has always been, appears in history as a carpenter from Nazareth, tells us that it was “through him” that everything that is came into being. He lets us know that he is the source of all life and that this life has provided a light that “the darkness has never been able to put out.“ Yes, we are into deep theology already. I like the metaphor of light and darkness in that it portrays the radical difference between good and evil, right and wrong. Light allows us to be fully aware of what is happening, while darkness would blind us to that which God would have us know. It is fellowship with the living Jesus that opens our eyes to the beauty of what now is and of, yes, of all that awaits us on the other side.
                                                           From John 1:1-5