Living to Overcome

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

—John 1:5,14

At a cursory glance, these two verses have little or nothing to do with each other, save that they come in the opening prelude to the Fourth Gospel. There is so much before and between these verses that it seems a bit stupid to treat them individually. 

Bear with me. I have something in mind.

Frances Taylor Gench, in a Bible study commentary on John (Encounters with Jesus: the Gospel of John, WJKP, 2007), notes something fascinating in the Greek of these verses—the verbs do not necessarily mean what we think they do, particularly overcome and lived; and it is in the nuance of these terms that I find the revelatory piece for us.

Flip the verses, taking the last first (biblical, no?). 

John 1:14 tells us what happened—God’s will (the Word) became tangible in Jesus—he manifests, embodies, and IS everything that God intends in God’s relationship with us. Hence, John gushes that Jesus is exactly what a son is in the best of familial relationships—see the child; understand the parents.

Now take the word we normally translate as lived (dwelt in older translations). In Greek, that word is eskanosen. Yes, it means to live among others, but its truest meaning is more akin to camped with. 

I love that—in Jesus, God came and camped with us! 

To go camping is to live rougher and leaner. It is living out in the world as the world is without the normal comforts, trappings, or luxuries most of us have at home. Well, didn’t God shed a lot to come and be with us in Jesus? As St. John understands it, it is a descent in every meaning of that word—God lowers the entirety of God in an act of self-humbling, self-emptying, and self-effacement. Gone is the original warning God would issue before speaking with humans—remember all the protocols Moses or Elijah had to undergo before they could talk with God? God now meets us as one of us, one with us, and one for us. In a sense, what happens in Jesus is a retelling of God’s word to David when David wanted to build God a temple—I do not live in a house of cedar, but in a tent—God is a God of movement, freedom, and is, therefore, unfettered to do and to be whatever God needs to be to meet us in grace, compassion, and redemption.

You see? There are the grace and truth John speaks of. In Jesus, we meet the reality of God which is love unbounded, willing to do and to be whatever is needed to help us transcend and transform who and what we are as we seek to be who God made us to be. 

Now take the first verse.

We tend to put a moral weight to light and darkness—that which is good is light; that which is bad is dark. In St. John’s mind, there is another interpretation—that which is light sees; but that which is dark does not. Or, this—that which is light comprehends; but that which is dark cannot. The word we normally translate overcome in Greek is katelaben which carries the weight of understanding. 

Look at what that does to the verse—it is not about a moral battle, a cosmic battle of good and evil, a sanctified Star Wars, but rather becomes about intelligibility—the world as it is cannot understand God, lost in the darkness of its own ideology, prejudice, and outlook.

That makes perfect sense, ironically.

As we read the entirety of John’s gospel, the struggle to be understood is constant as Jesus tries to explain himself through word and deed to the covenant people. They assume they already know the mind of God, the will of God, and the way of God, so they reject Jesus, refuse to accept his reiteration of the Word, and lose themselves. 

Has anything changed?

American Christianity is struggling to stay relevant. Sadly, a good bit of the suffering coming in that struggle is self-inflicted. There has been a problematic tendency to decide that being right trumps all else. In being right, there can only be one right answer—no matter how much you try, the only right answer to 2+2 is and will be forever and ever, amen, 4. When that same logic gets applied to faith, though, we immediately run into trouble. There is a wonderful story from an ancient community of faith—

Two disciples were in a bitter argument about how best to practice faith. One adamantly declared that it was only through complete and utter obedience to the commandments that one could find salvation. The other argued just as vehemently that, no, it was understanding the will behind the commandments that led to salvation. Unable to come to peace, they sought the counsel of their abbot. He listened to the first and said, “You are right!” Indignant, the second blurted his argument to the abbot who replied calmly, “You are right!” A third disciple listening spoke up, “But, Father, they can’t both be right, surely!” The abbot said to him, “And YOU are right!”

Faith is not about being right; it is about finding God.

And there is no limit to the ways we might find God.

Surely.

As Jesus came and camped among us, he sought to be understood, but more than that, he wanted God to be understood. He came to embody the way and will of God, showing us in his words and deeds as he walked and worked among us how it is that God thinks of us and what God wants for us as the beloved children of God. In God’s infinite love, God has room for every expression of recognition of God’s way and being. 

The seven billion of us inhabiting the earth are a wide and varied species. We have a tangle of languages and ways of thinking and being. There is no way that God would choose to limit all that self-expression to a single, correct way of being with God. That would be a rejection of what Genesis tells us so surely and beautifully—God enjoyed creating and everything that God made, including the marvelous and miraculous tapestry of being human—remember God’s last word in creating? Everything and everyone was very good. That hasn’t changed. That will never change.

So, to understand God, let go of being correct or right. Instead, meet the world as God meets it—in unfettered and unbounded love that seeks to dwell fully and completely with each and every person alive, rejoicing in who and what they are as a child of God.

Maybe we should go camping...