The Gospel of Love

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn 1:1). We all know this powerful opening to John’s Gospel. These words are both beautiful poetry and a profound philosophical and theological revelation of truth. What does it mean? What does it reveal? What is it that John knows and is trying to tell us about Jesus? He is revealing, ultimately, the very nature of God. With these seemingly simple words, yet deeply profound words, John is carrying us out and beyond everything familiar, to that which is beyond and above all created things.

Every faithful Jew would have understood the meaning of John’s opening words, “In the beginning” for it is the first word of the Hebrew scriptures, “bereshit,” which means precisely ‘beginning’. But John is signaling a new beginning here, a story of something new, a new creation. And that new beginning is summed up in a word, not just any word, but The Word that was with God before the beginning of the world, that, indeed, was God. It was through this Word that all things came into being. This is the all-encompassing Word. It is this Word (Logos) that was made flesh in Jesus, the living Word that reveals God the Father to us in and through itself.

This Word, in essence, encompasses the totality of Being. As Bishop Robert Barron puts it, this Word is the perfect word, uttered by the Creator of the Universe, which alone, “is able to speak himself in one great Word, a Word that does not simply contain an aspect of his being but rather the whole of his being…and this is why John says that ‘the Word was God” (Jn. 1:1). That Word was made flesh, becoming one with us in Jesus Christ. He is the face of God. He is the fullness of God. And in him we encounter and come to know the very Nature of God. Jesus is the Word that is from all eternity, the Word that is capacious enough to encompass everything, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end…and more. He is the Word that is the fullness of all that is, the Word from which all that was, is, or will ever be, takes its being.

Jesus, the Word, clothed in human form, reveals the face and the true nature of God to us in all that he does. We see the force of this Word revealed in many ways, at the Wedding Feast in Cana, through Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well, and in his raising of Lazarus. Throughout his Gospel it is clear that John knew Jesus in a deeply personal way. He tells us that he, along with the other Apostles had heard his voice, and seen him with their eyes, that they had touched him with their own hands, and because of this they came to know that he was, indeed, the very Word of life. The depth of John’s relationship with Jesus is revealed when we see him with Jesus’ mother, Mary, standing at the foot of the Cross. Jesus, looking down from the Cross, addresses his mother, saying, “Woman, behold your son,” and to John, “Behold your mother. And from that hour the disciple took her into his home” (Jn. 19:26-27). What, then, is that Word that John writes of so powerfully at the beginning of his Gospel?

John gives us many pieces of evidence of what that word is throughout his Gospel, but he reveals its full meaning in his First Letter in the Epistles when he reveals its full meaning to us in three short words, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for GOD IS LOVE” (1 Jn. 4:7-8). The Word is love itself.

The question we must ask ourselves then is, “How do we learn this love?” We learn it by seeking our intimacy with Jesus. Where do we learn this intimacy? We learn it by our intentional practice of prayer at the foot of the Cross, and in the reading of the Gospels. It is in this conscious practice that he reveals himself to us, in his own words, in the deeds we see him perform. Like any relationship, our relationship with the Word of God, Jesus, is developed over a lifetime of commitment, of being present to one another, of listening and responding to one another. Let me write that again. A relationship with Jesus is a lifelong practice that grows and deepens the more we give ourselves to that relationship. We are finite creatures and as such, it is possible to develop a very deep relationship with the Word of God in this life, and this will show itself in our deepening capacities to love others as he loved us. But we will know the unimaginable fullness of that loving relationship only in heaven.

Jesus’ love for us is real, life-giving, patient, enduring, and forgiving. It is in encountering and in opening ourselves up to this love that we become sons and daughters of God, Who is Love itself. It is in our humble, willing, and accepting relationship with God that we find the courage to love others as he loved us. And we remember, too, that in choosing to live in accord with the Law of Love in this world we may be misunderstood, misinterpreted, or even rejected and hated, just as Jesus was. But if we love God and willingly choose to live in his love, we can know that his graces of courage, wisdom, strength, and love will be given to us, and all the more in difficult times. In the end, as the adage says, “Amor Vincet Omnia”, Love conquers all. Jesus, the Word of God, in his supreme act of sacrificial love on the cross, vanquished sin and death once and for all. Let us pray that we can come to finally say with all of our being, “[I] have come to know and believe in the love that God has for [me]” (1 Jn. 4:16). Amen!