John 1:1-14 for BCP Communion

Can you see?

A couple of years ago a man who had been born blind, aged 68 fell down stairs in Montreal and while he was in hospital the doctor realised that he could cure his blindness, and he did so.

‘I have to learn everything over again, as if I were a child’ the man said.

John says in this marvellous gospel reading (see below) that Jesus is the light of all people; the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness did not over come it. We light candles in church to symbolise that light.

But what does that mean?

We are so used to light that it is difficult to imagine never having been able to see but blind children learn to make do, they learn to manage to get by….but they cannot see the birds, they cannot see the River Itchen, they cannot see the beautiful light in the morning and the evening.

In the light, we can see these beautiful sites and our lives are massively enhanced by being able to do so.

Indeed, we can get a glimpse of God our creator, his character, his ways, in the light we can see who he is; in the light of Jesus, we can see that everything in the Bible is really about Who God is and What He has done.

And that light, the light of understanding, the light of meaning, like the Sun’s light, is something that we need if we are to survive as human beings: as we need the Sun to grow our crops and animals, to keep warm, to live, we also need the light of a relationship with Jesus Christ to flourish, as we live.

And it does make all the difference in the world to understand this.

Without him, we are in fact blind, if we cannot see, we are just making do…

When we know what light is, the light of that relationship with Jesus Christ, then our lives are transformed and, like the man born blind, we learn how to live again….

Amen

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
14 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. 15 (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ”) 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.