In this Gospel, John has created an armature for selected event as a master jeweler crafts a setting for precious stones. There is no attempt to use all the stones at hand, in fact the last line of John's Gospel states that there are more stories than would fit in all the books in the world. There are more stars than the most well crafted crown can contain.

John chose those stories that best projected the light of the world into the shadowy hearts and minds of humankind. In this masterwork, a glittering prologue precedes seven shining miracles. Thematic discourses stand resplendent in a field of conflict with attendant Pharisees. Viewed from a theological perspective, John's gospel is the crowning glory of apostolic witness.

The words of John's Gospel are words for the world and they start from the largest possible perspective. John's Gospel is so different in its approach that the other three, Matthew, Mark and Luke, grouped together are called the Synoptic Gospels. To see John's word in the clearest light, we must first gaze at the Synoptic gospels.

In the beginning was the word… the first Gospel to be written, scholars generally believe, was the Gospel according to Mark. Probably penned before the fall of the Temple in 70 AD, Mark's Gospel jumps over Jesus' birth and childhood without any mention. The opening scene is Jesus' baptism. Then the story bounds through a series of significant events in Galilee and all but leaps into the last week of Jesus' life. Mark's gospel presents Jesus as the divinely appointed Messiah and breathlessly exhibits one mighty work after another as signs of the presence of God to those who have eyes to see them. The beginning is clear - repent. The end to this first Gospel is muddled. Various manuscripts have one or both of the two alternate endings. But the intention of Mark's gospel was to be missionary minded - the written account was barely dry even as the stories continued to flex in their form through their retelling in more and more distant places.

In the beginning was the word…and the author of Matthew's Gospel knew that for a Jewish audience a credible proclamation would need to include word of one's family - from whom are you descended, to which house do you belong? For Jews, the descendents of Moses, the words of the prophets gave credence and pedigree to those coming later who purported to speak in the name of the Lord. Hence the presentation of a family tree at the beginning of Matthew's Gospel. Likewise in Matthew, we hear one reference after another to Old Testament prophecies fulfilled. Pains are taken to show Jesus as Israel's Messiah and the legitimate heir to the house of King David. The Gospel according to Matthew was written later than Mark, but earlier than John. Matthew's Gospel seems framed to approach those who had a Jewish background.

In the beginning was the word…and the author of Luke's Gospel wrote his words in Greek, he was probably a gentile himself, not present at the events he carefully recorded, but clearly a fervent believer as well as a gifted writer. Luke's Gospel was probably written in the last third of the first century, contemporary with Matthew's Gospel but Luke's Gospel was structured for a different audience.

Jesus is presented in Luke's Gospel as divine and human, and proclaimed as Savior. Luke names people and places that one might find in other writings or on maps. History and geography lend credence to his claims. But there is little reference to prophecy or inclusion of quotations from the Old Testament. The Gospel according to Luke is addressed to a gentile audience who would have known little of Jewish scripture. In fact Theophilus, who is addressed in the opening of Luke's book, was probably a Roman of high rank. But Luke was a gifted storyteller concerned to get the details down with accuracy. Where Mark presents events that speed by in a blur, Luke unveils sharply detailed still life vignettes that draw us into the scene - we smell the perfume of the ointment, we hear the noise of the crowd.

In the beginning was the word…The words of John's Gospel were words for the world. Like Luke's, John's Gospel was written to attract the minds of a Hellenistic people. But John does not tell us that we are about to hear a story. He begins by displaying the rightful order of the cosmos.

John wrote to be understood by gentiles who were influenced by Greek philosophy. John's Gospel was written to illuminate the truth, not to simply recount the order of facts.
John does not start with lineage, or scenes of the Nativity. Nor does he start with Jesus' baptism.

John begins with the Word, the Logos, a concept of Greek thought that gives John the door through which Christ the Savior can enter the mind's of the Gentile world. The Logos was - order, reason, logic - the plan by which the world was fashioned and held its shape. John fashions this threshold with care in the hope that his Gentile audience might "come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing …may have life in his name."(Jn. 20:31)

John condenses the whole Jesus story into one simple phrase: "The word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth."

The Greek believed in a distant God who had no direct contact with mankind. At the same time they were convinced that everything on earth was a pale reflection of an ideal form. "Tableness" in perfection existed in some unapproachable realm. All tables on earth were imperfect shadows of that ideal form.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." This claim made sense to those who were steeped in Greek ways of looking at the world.
Behold John's doorway, with the door partially open.

"He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being." Having crafted the door, John begins to walk his apostolic witness through it to greet his Gentile audience. Logos moves through the doorway and begins to morph into the person of Christ.

"What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it."

Light, true reality, not a pale shadow, has entered into our world, our life. John proclaimed to the Greek world, that in Christ was the reality of God - a light for all people, present in the world.

Though the Word, this light of life, all who receive Him become real - children of God - not pale shadows of some ideal "personness" in an unreachable realm, but related and beloved by a God who takes on flesh. It is God the only Son, Jesus the Christ, who makes the previously unknowable, untouchable God known to us Gentiles, ancient Greeks or modern Monktonites.

To be real is not a desire felt only by ancient Greeks. We too want to have lives that mean something, in a world that is more than shadows. We too want a God large enough to hold our wondering thoughts yet near enough to know us and be known by us. We too need to hear that grace and truth has come to us because we cannot always find our way to them on our own. There is indeed more in heaven and earth than in all our philosophies. Come, O living Word and make your dwelling with us.

In the beginning was the Word, and is now, and ever shall be.
Light streaming into the shadowy world binding God and human flesh in a new and bright reality, visible even to gentiles, and in that binding is our freedom,
in that freedom is our life, in that life is theWord, now and forever,
real God in the real world, world without end. AMEN.