“Everything was created through him; nothing—not one thing!—came into being without him” (The Message).  John isn’t the only one to talk about Jesus in this way; in his letter to the Colossians, Paul says: “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible [. . .] all things have been created through him” (Col 1:16).  John, and Paul, in pointing to Jesus, point us towards the power of creation: yes from no, is from isn’t, can from can’t.  That makes Jesus the power and source of hope.  In him, we can become, and overcome; in him, we shall—provided there is a relationship.

The ancient Hebrews understood that God acts through speaking; God accomplishes His work through words.  God does not need to walk over to the lumber, grab a 2 x 4 with his hands, use his eye to check that the framing is level and square.  As we run deeper into this digital age, this idea that work is done through speech, through words and verbal communication, at the speed of thought (and faster), might just make some sense to us.  We live in a world of words, a world of talk, as we know so well: talk on all sides.  All talk and no action.  All talk but no change.  That’s not how the Word of God works, though.  God’s Word makes things happen, causes, creates, calls into being, gives birth.  We all want many things and all kinds of changes.  God wants one thing for each of us: that we would know Him, truly.  God invites you and me into a relationship.

“Everything was created through him.”  John is trying to draw us into what is beyond our ability to explain, beyond our many words.  Science tries to give an account of how it is that there is something rather than nothing: how does being come from non-being, existence from non-existence, life from what is not alive?  I recently heard a physicist suggest that maybe there has just always been something, that there never has been a time when absolutely nothing existed: maybe the universe is eternal.  He was speaking of the physical universe: atoms and subatomic particles.  I was hearing him theologically: of course there is that which has always existed, eternal, God.  It’s not that God has existed for like an astoundingly long time—four trillion years or something.  Nor is it the case that God continues after all that time to grow, develop, become—evolve, in other words.  It’s not the case that God thought one way about a topic a long, long time ago, but thinks very differently about it now.  God doesn’t change, and God isn’t boring.  God isn’t like oatmeal for breakfast every day for a year.  God the Word created all things from nothing, and He would like to have a meaningful, real relationship, with you, all of us.

In John’s Greek, “word” is logos, and logos, while it does mean “word,” also means reason, in the sense of orderliness, structure, organization . . . rationality.  The logos, the word, undergirds everything, reminding us that, beneath all appearances to the contrary, the world and existence are orderly and not chaotic or random.  Scientists use this term “chaos” or “chaotic” to describe some of what they observe in the universe: a root unpredictability that can neither be reduced nor systematized, something much bigger, much more complex, beyond our ability to describe, beyond our words.  That sounds like a way of saying God without having to say God.  The orderliness, the predictability we experience in this world makes it possible for us to do something with this life in this world: build, grow, increase, manage, and bless—we have minds that operate in an orderly, logical way.

Logic, as you can guess, also comes from this word logos—the creative, creating Word, the Word that works.  The universe displays this logic; we detect this logic in us.  This logic that we find inside and outside points us to God, who speaks and things happen, who wants to happen, in each of us.  There are those who insist that God stopped creating at the end of Day Six—whatever has come along since then is God’s providence, seeing to our needs, caring about our well-being.  It seems to me, though, that God is still creating, something new, something wonderful and beautiful: creating faith in one heart and another, light in place of darkness, love where there was indifference, help for hurt; real connection, meaningful relationship.  Faith isn’t exactly or even primarily something we feel; faith is something we have, vital, that works in us.  This faith is given, created, birthed—faith is the gift.

Nothing can come into being without him.  I think we can tell that John is setting the stage for something.  He wants us to know that one came to us, lived among us, and that John had known this one, personally.  The one through whom all things, seen and unseen, exist, who speaks and it is so, came into our world.  God came to us like us, as one of us, to speak to us, to put His Word in us, so that a new life could begin in us.  We’re all in need of rebirth, renewal; maybe you know it, maybe even feel it; perhaps you want that renewal.  We hear reports that many of those in their late teens through their early thirties—are rediscovering church, faith, reconnecting.  We’ve heard of revivals, awakenings, that have happened on one college campus and another over the last few years.  There’s a hunger.  It cannot be satisfied by the things of this world—oh, we’ll throw money, success, popularity, drugs, alcohol, and food at the hunger.  This hunger cannot be satisfied by the new order that some who very much want to be in charge want us to accept as the new, better truth and the new, better reality.  We hear the many words of this world, this age, constantly being babbled in our ears, trying to make their way into our hearts and minds, crowding our souls so that there’s no room left for anything more, anything else.  And there’s a hunger.  God put it there, spoke it in us, long ago, long before any of us were born, so that we would be ready for relationship, reborn when and where God has appointed.

Maybe that could happen here, tonight.  Maybe you’re here not just because it’s Christmas Eve and it’s expected.  Maybe you’re here because you’ve felt hunger for something more, real, bigger, better than the bickering and brokenness.

The words of Scripture often record a deep sense of wonder regarding the world around us—it’s still God’s creation, and God still uses all creation to call to us.  It’s not the case that everything out there and beyond, let alone in these hearts of ours, is just a hopeless jumble.  Life does not have to be a meaningless mess—just make the best you can of it and don’t have big expectations!  The Word of God, who is God, spoke, and there was light, difference, direction, forward and backward, a glorious something rather than a horrible nothing.  And that speaker of glory, who causes something where there had been nothing, comes to us, comes for us, even tonight, even right here, so that we may truly see God, truly hear, truly know God—because being truly alive is in seeing, hearing, and knowing the hands and heart of God.  The creator came to create new life in us, to give us His life, so that our lives would look like something so much better than so much of what we encounter out there.

To the God of all grace, who calls you to share God’s eternal glory in union with Christ, be the power forever!