What If God Was One Of Us?

Story

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This is the story of our world, where we came from and how we got to where we are today. Obviously we’re going to miss a few things out, or our story would take a very very long time indeed. But our story will cover the important events and help to explain why we think of God the way that we do. I’ll concentrate on those things mentioned in our readings today. I will tell it from my understandings of theology and physics (both of these are limited, but I’ll do my best), and a few other things as well.

So let’s begin.

Difficulties with Words

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Once upon a time ...

Oh, no that’s not right, we need to start before “a time”, what would we call it.

“Before time began”, yes, that’s better, but still not quite right. I think it’s probably as good as I’ll get it. Finding the right words to explain what we think we understand, is an important theme in the story.

“In the beginning”

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The apostle John’s words are translated “In the beginning …” echoing the first words found in the Bible, in the Book of Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” If we were speaking to people today we might say “In the beginning God split the nothing into positive and negative and the ‘big bang’ occurred, light was produced and eventually galaxies and solar systems and the planet earth was among them”.

John’s beginning

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John’s beginning though requires a little more scene setting than the beginning in Genesis. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God”

Or we could say “When the beginning began the Word was already there with God, and the Word was God”.

Wisdom

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Then there is that part of the lovely poem about wisdom to consider, we only heard a small part of it this morning. It seems to suggest that wisdom is a created thing. It can be confusing, and it can be translated other ways, we’ll come back to that. But first, let’s fast forward in time for a minute and meet a guy called Arius.

Arius

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Arius was a priest in Alexandria in modern day Egypt. He lived from about 250 to 336 at a time when the evil empire (the Roman Empire) was suddenly and miraculously converted. That happened in 312, because the Emperor was converted at that time. Arius taught that Jesus was God’s son, in the same way that Andy and Mike are my sons. He liked the idea that wisdom was in fact Jesus, or the Word, and he based that idea on this part of the poem.

Teaching

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His teaching was gaining ground and was beginning to cause a split in the church, as many of the other leaders did not agree with him. All this happened at a time when the Emperor wanted a peaceful religion to spread around the empire. The bishop did not take any steps to stop Arius from spreading his teaching, and the church leadership at the time seemed happy to let the controversy ramble on. Nothing changes does it? So Constantine ordered them to sort it out.

Nicea

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A meeting was arranged at Nicea in 325 and discussions got underway. Discussions might be a little of an understatement, as there seems to have been physical fighting too. Athanasius, another priest, was sent by his bishop. He had the job of putting the case that Jesus, the Word and God are one, as John’s translation says today.

Eventually, Arius lost the battle and a creed was agreed that spelt out the true nature of Jesus the Word as God.

We’ll be saying that creed later, so I don’t have to include it here.

As we do look out for the lines that say …

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one Being with the Father.

Wisdom?

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And Wisdom? Well there are several reasons why it doesn’t work to assume that wisdom and the Word are the same. Firstly, wisdom is presented as a woman. Secondly, you can’t really create wisdom, that’s just a poetic device. If you look at the footnote you will see that ‘brought me forth’ can also be translated as ‘possessed me’. So wisdom was possessed by God before the beginning. Look how that reading ends

“I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.”

Wisdom delights in mankind – just let’s pause to take that in – because there are too many times when I don’t.