Justice and Hope

There’s a certain kind of poetry in the repetition and simplicity of John 1 as the Gospel writer lays the groundwork for the world-bending story to follow. In today’s passage, we’re told directly that John was sent from God. There are no frills, no extra bits of information; nothing needs to be inferred or extrapolated. It’s direct and no-nonsense. But John wasn’t just sent from God. John was sent with a mission: to tell everyone that the light is coming. Each word works together to build anticipation for the coming of Jesus, which is a key characteristic of the Advent story.

However, the story of Advent and Jesus’ birth are familiar for many of us—so familiar that we often spend our time trying to make them more exotic to remind ourselves of the profound nature of the Incarnation. We create works of art and elaborate reworkings of these stories to remind ourselves that Jesus’ birth is not normal; it is paradigm-shattering.

The plain, understated way John’s Gospel opens up the story of Jesus might surprise us. The direct nature of the Gospel’s words are almost bracing; their simplicity prepares us to encounter the familiarity of God, who is always with us, and the profundity that God would become human and come to live among us.

John’s use of light as the symbol for Jesus further reveals this dichotomy. Like air or water, light is an ever-present aspect of our life. It’s so fundamental to our existence that we rarely contemplate its power or our inability to live our lives without it. John’s Gospel reminds us that Jesus is both entirely familiar and profoundly essential to our lives.