God and the reason for existence

Love made plain through action. Photo: Thomas Leuthard PxHere

Samuel Wells again* puts his finger on the pulse of our times in this edited version of a sermon preached at St. Martin-in-the-Fields on Christmas Eve just past:

The first sentence of perhaps the most important story ever written is this: “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). This sentence is itself a nod to the first sentence in the Bible, which starts, “When all things began …” (Genesis 1:1). But it’s saying something more profound than that earlier sentence. It’s saying communication — the desire to share and relate, the urge to engage and listen and receive and open up — is at the very core of all things; indeed, it is the reason for the creation of all things: “The Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

In other words, the essence that created existence, the forever that conceived of time, the everywhere that brought about here is, at its very heart, about communication — nonviolent communication, partnership, relationship, togetherness. In fact, that’s the purpose of existence: to communicate fully with one another and to communicate back with God. There’s nothing more important than that.

But here we run into two problems. The first is, not all communication is healthy — some words are hurtful, cruel, and destructive. (This was true even before the invention of Twitter.) The second is, words are sometimes only words. Words aren’t always rooted in feelings, actions, or integrity: sometimes words can be so far from actuality they might just as well be called lies.

In 1990 the rock band Extreme released a ballad that struck a chord with many people whose partners were quick with the terms of endearment, but whose way of showing it made those words empty. “Saying ‘I love you’,” goes the song, “Is not the words I want to hear from you … More than words is all you have to do to make it real. Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me —’cause I’d already know.” Rock ballads don’t get more searing than that.

Listen, with lyrics, here

Now I don’t know anything about the religious persuasion of the members of Extreme, but I wonder if they’ve realised, all the thousands of times they’ve been called upon to sing their most famous song these last thirty years, that they are perfectly expressing the heart of what Christmas is all about.

Communication is at the heart of all things, because the real big bang that started this whole thing off was God’s decision to be in relationship — for the persons of the Trinity to communicate as fully beyond themselves as they do with each other. Humanity is the purpose of creation, because humanity is the partner with whom God can be fully in relationship. But it turns out humanity finds ways to twist communication from its created purpose as the texture of relationship to a sinister parody of relationship in cruelty, and the outright undermining of relationship in lies.

There’s no Virginia Axline to come alongside wounded, fearful, and withdrawn humanity and create trust through patience and understanding. Many prophets offer words; many brave souls offer example. But collectively, humanity’s response to God embodies the words of that song: “More than words is all you have to do to make it real …”

The most important sentence ever written

Which brings us to the most significant sentence in the Bible, and I would suggest the most important sentence ever written. A sentence about communication, and how communication turns into trust and relationship. Fourteen verses into that same story I referred to earlier, a story known as John’s gospel, we find these priceless, peerless, perfect words: “And the Word became flesh, and lived among us.”

Here lies the fulfilment of the whole reason for the existence of all things. Everything that happened before this moment is backdrop and preparation. Everything that has happened since has been echo and embedding. This is the central moment, in which God’s original desire to be with us becomes more than words.

Jesus appears, fully human — born of a human mother in pretty desperate, shoddy, forsaken, neglected, rough, and inhospitable conditions. Let’s just say the ox wasn’t too particular where it went to the bathroom and the ass wasn’t too fussed about where it brought up last night’s fodder.

But Jesus is also fully divine, for the heavens ring with the song of angels and a star guides the Magi to the place of his birth. Jesus is the perfect communication of God to us, more than words, making it real, and Jesus is the perfect communication of us to God, how easy it can be to show God how we feel.

The whole of Jesus’s life is like Virginia Axline’s year with young Dibs. Jesus is creating an environment for us where we can live beyond cruelty and lies, and finally find ways to dwell beyond violence in patience, understanding and trust. He is in search of our self, listening, not judging, offering open enquiry not closed questions, inviting us to wonder and discover and allowing us to find our own solutions at our own pace. Jesus is the Word of God that offers us the epitome of communication, through which we may find a relationship that lasts forever.

Yet there’s no naïveté in Christmas. There is simplicity, and a degree of innocence — but no naïveté. Because we all know that cruelty and lies enter Christ’s story soon enough. They’re there in Herod’s court when the Magi go to Jerusalem by mistake and they’re there when Herod sends soldiers to kill all the young children in Bethlehem. And they catch up with Jesus in the end, when his communication meets the world’s violence, and for a moment violence prevails.

But the light of communication and relationship shines in the darkness of violence, and promises that, if we can only find time and patience, we will eventually see trust and relationship emerge from even the most violent of our failures to find words.

This is the wonder of Christmas: The Word becomes more than words. And inspires us to let the Holy Spirit of patience and tenderness turn our own violent frustration and anger into relationship and trust, and eventually to let those words become flesh, in embodied gestures and commitments of solidarity and love.

It’s because the Word became flesh, because God came among us to embody utter relationship with us, because God has faced the worst of our cruelty and lies, because God has shown us, because God has made it real, that we gather on Christmas Eve, with stars so brightly shining, and say to God, boldly, bravely, gladly: “You don’t have to say that you love us — ’cause we already know.”

Ω Rev. Dr Samuel Wells is the vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, and Visiting Professor of Christian Ethics at King’s College London. 

* Previously posted on this blog:

    The twin dimensions of Christmas

    The logic of God gleams at Christmas

Ω Read the sermon in full here

Ω Leave a comment and, if you like this blog, read the same posts at my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified when a new post is published.