Word 2000

Blakeney 26-02-03

Word 2000

In our Deanery Chapter, I have been occasionally accused of championing the use of e-mail and the Internet.

Bill Gates is famous as the founder of the software company Microsoft and Microsoft has two very well known programmes Windows and Word 2000 (RTM).

And those of you who have a computer will know how often a fault - in either programme - will cause the computer to crash.

I found this amusing story on the Internet recently.

Story: At a recent computer expo, COMDEX, Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the car industry and is reputed to have said:

"If General Motors kept up with technology in the way that Microsoft has, we would all be driving in cars costing $25.00 with a fuel consumption that was 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Gates’ comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason.

You would then have to

pull over to the side of the road,

close all of the windows,

switch off the car,

restart it and

reopen the windows

before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, when executing a manoeuvre, such as a left turn, your car would stall and refuse to restart. And you would have to reinstall the engine to get it going again.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light or a "You have performed an illegal operation."

7. The airbag system would ask you, "Are you sure?" before inflating.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously

lifted the door handle,

turned the key and

grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You’d have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

Our lectionary reading today is John 1:1-14, which is all about the Word – but St. John, is not referring to Bill Gates’ programme. He is referring to Jesus Christ, the Word of God.

St John’s Gospel opens with the following words

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning”

Why did St John call Jesus the Word of God and not simply call him Jesus.

Well, because Jesus only came into existence on this earth - as the name of the little baby born in Bethlehem 2000 years ago.

But the Son of God existed before he became human as the baby Jesus – whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.

So to clarify this, John has called him, in his pre-incarnate form “the Word of God”

John’s Gospel was originally written in Greek and in the Greek the word for “The Word” is LOGOS.

In other words, the opening of John’s Gospel should read: In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God and the Logos was God…And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us (Jn 1:1 and 14)

For the Greeks, the Logos was “the rational principle of the Universe, its meaning and its plan or purpose.”

However, I believe that St. John understands the term Logos from his Jewish perspective as, in the words of T.W.Manson,

“the creative and revealing Word of God by which the heaven and the earth were made and by whom the prophets were inspired”

John’s imagery reminds us of the opening words of Genesis 1 which reads: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…

But I also think that John used the term LOGOS or The Word to describe the Son of God, because words are how we communicate with one another and God. And Jesus was the communication of God to man

There is so much in the opening verses of John that we would be here all night trying to unpack the theology of it.

So I would like to look at five attributes of Jesus in the first chapter of the Gospel of St. John.