Advent and the Word
As we enter the season of Advent, Dan and Rachael invite us to reflect on the opening of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word…” From there, they move to John’s closing declaration: “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”
Through this framework, they delve into the meaning and weight of the Word — and of words themselves. Words are not just for speaking, but also for listening. (We often forget that part.)
Dan shares his personal longing for this season: “I want, for me, this season, I want for us to love the Word, to love words, to be silenced, to have more sense of awe. And in many ways, the humility to move toward a vulnerability that askews false power.”
While this episode leans a bit more philosophical than some, we hope it offers a thoughtful space to ponder the beauty and mystery of the Word. Join Dan and Rachael as they share their own questions and reflections, inviting us into a richer experience of Advent.
Episode Transcript:
Dan: Rachael as we enter into really the reflection of one of the most significant periods on our calendar, and that’s Advent. I do have a bit of a Bible quiz for you. Is that alright?
Rachael: Okay. Yeah.
Dan: Okay. So tell me generally what we’re going to go back to this. I just want you to put words to how does John begin his gospel?
Rachael: I know this one so well. In the beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the word was with God.
Dan: Okay. You. You’re good. You got the point. Tell me then, then, what’s the last verse of the gospel of John Chapter 21?
Rachael: I dunno.
Dan: No Bible gold star for you.
Rachael: God’s always had a way of keeping me humble, so it’s fine.
Dan: Well, I’m here, there for you anyway. Here’s how it ends. Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. Let’s just say it. The gospel of John begins with a word and it ends with a lot of words. I mean so many words that the earth can’t fill all the books that could be written about Jesus. I love that. I just think it’s so playfully intentional that John wants us to be captured by, in one sense this world of infinite number of books, but it all begins with a word. So as we begin to talk about Advent and John 1, I wonder if you would read John 1:1-4.
Rachael: Do you have a particular translation you want me to read from or is it okay to… what?
Dan: I think we probably benefit everyone if we read 10 and just stopped. But you read whatever one you wish.
Rachael: I just usually have the NRSV. So I’ll just read that’s you said 1-5?
Dan: Yeah.
Rachael: Okay. “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him and without him, not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”
Dan: So we’re going to spend the first time of reflection on Advent on the word and the notion of listening, let alone speaking. Then we’ll spend a second time talking about how the light and sight, how the interplay of speech and light are the playground for our anticipation of the Lord’s coming. Not only the coming in, the vulnerability as an infant, but in the power and vulnerability coming as the king of the earth. So all that to begin with as we talk about the word, I would love to know some of where you go as we begin this conversation.
Rachael: It’s so interesting, this world, I would say a long season of my life, my imagination for this was actually like the word is scripture and very at some juncture, really understanding Christ as the word, Jesus as the word. But where my mind goes today with this particular path, I mean because there’s something of this language of God coming to be… God being in the… Jesus being in the beginning, the word being in the beginning and the word being central to creation and the word being the one that life is found within for all people. And then it ends with this kind of, we move away from word to light and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not over take it. And where my mind goes today, just based on the cultural moment we find ourselves in is that in 2015 of Advent, I wrote a blog article for the Allender Center playing with this part of John. And I would say, I kind of want to be demeaning to myself. I’m not going to be, but it was a very cute and naive pastoral admonishment and exhortation to not choose Donald Trump as the candidate for the Republican party. And I was playing with fear and that we’re not called to be people of fear and Emmanuel God with us. And I think something of my very good childlike faith, but also very naive in my privilege and place and world. But what I was actually encountering and seeing was so shocking to me. It’s just interesting today as I read this passage, remembering that and thinking how much has changed and shifted in me in over almost a decade, and yet my longing for the word to be with us and among us, and to be one who is not overcome by evil.
Dan: Well, the simple phrase, the word created reality that’s clearly what the passage is pointing us toward. And the word is God. The word is with God. The word is God. And so we have, shall we say, a rather loud proclamation of a trinitarian view of reality. We are relational beings because reality is relational.
Rachael: Yes.
Dan: And in that, what we can step back is to say, not only did the word create reality, but words create our reality. If our words are words that are true, then our words create a reality that bears the glory, the wonder, the beauty of God. But if our words are not true or bear some degree of falsity, then our reality is distorted. It’s disorienting. And so when we come to this, we, as you put it so well, we can’t deal with Advent without dealing with the current world any more than Joseph and Mary making the way to Bethlehem are doing so in the context of taxes and a accounting of the tax base. So we’re not ruining Christmas by bringing reality in. Reality demands, Christmas demands, that we talk about how words get used to good, to beauty to truth. Or as Joseph Goebbels of propagandist in the Nazi era would say, tell a lie and keep telling a lie, eventually the lie will become believable. And so we have to in Christmas anticipate that the word wants to direct us to what is true. And in that truth, we have to find our life and nowhere else. So what else does this passage bring for you? Because it certainly brings to me the world is talking and I have to confess, I don’t tend to listen. It’s not a good and honorable part of me. I’m so grateful that Becky is a avid listener to the world around her. So I do get the benefit at times of her participation in the fact that the world is talking. And I don’t mean by that NBC or Fox News. I’m talking about trees. I’m talking about crows. I’m talking about, not that we have any elephants nearby, but elephants, whales. So as we begin that conversation, the earth is talking. I’m curious how it’s talking or when it’s talked to you.
Rachael: Well, and I mean I see this in your notes, but also it definitely brings up that connection to Romans 8 and this language of creation, groaning. And yeah, I I love that you’re bringing all of creation into it, not just humanity as somehow the only part of creation that is talking or speaking. And I mean, it’s 80 degrees here in Philadelphia today. That’s pretty abnormal for November in Philadelphia. It’s usually more in the forties by this time of year. And we haven’t had rain like a substantial rain in almost a month now, which is also weird for us this time of year. These are just… my family in Oklahoma. It’s not normal to have tornado season in November, but there have been massive tornadoes in Oklahoma. That’s not normative. So it does feel as if there is a groaning and an ache and a calling out and a embodying and exposing like groaning and disorder and disruption and violence even.
Dan: Yeah. So we cannot deny the earth is in birthing, trivial, suffering, groaning. And again, the question is, is it just a lovely metaphor and anthropomorphizing nature… Well, I think that’s one of the fascinating things we won’t spend much time on, but I remember reading the Secret life of trees.
Rachael: It’s so good, so good.
Dan: And the moment I’m reading about how giraffes eat certain trees a high up and that there is the sending of a chemical downwind and also through the root system to warn the other trees, to basically secrete a particular, shall we say poison, but not poison, but a bad taste for giraffes. And I’m like, oh, it can’t be, they’re just too wacky. Too wacky. I’m actually functionally a materialist. And what I mean by that is I’m not sure I believe in the unseen world. I don’t want to believe. I do. I do believe, but it’s so easy to become that concrete materialist who doesn’t actually think the earth has in some sense of the word, a being, a soul, a capacity in its own way to communicate. But it is communication. If you look at elephants who are able to alert others that a death has occurred from even a hundred miles away in order to bring together an opportunity for the community to grieve. And then recently, I guess one of the major researchers for crows is at the University of Washington. So I was reading this little article about how long do crows hold someone accountable for a crow failure and then make them pay, in other words, revenge
Rachael: Like other crows or people? How long? Because crows are real scary.
Dan: Yeah, but do you know how many years this freaked me out, 17. 17 years. It holds a grudge and will bomb a person will remember their face and then genetically passes on the resentment to their children. So they, without knowing the initial offense, will also join. So don’t piss off a crow. So you’re looking at this strange world of trees, crows whales, elements. So at one level, I’m so grateful that we have in our day the research that would’ve been preposterous, maybe even a decade or 10 or at least a hundred years ago. So for us to be able to go, oh, no, no, the word has embedded words of some sort, communication of some sort into all of existence. And so for me, the question becomes why am I not listening? What keeps me from hearing the world groan, but also hearing the sweetness, even in sorrow of elephants drawing their pack together to honor, to remember, to grieve and then in some sense of the word bury and move on. So we’re in a position where I think the word I want to underscore is if this doesn’t bring a sense of wonder, I ain’t sure what will and where does that take you?
Rachael: I mean, the two thoughts that were going through my head is just if we can’t listen to creation… we’re already showing that we have a very hard time listening to each other. Be empathetic and in awe of each other, understanding the stories that we hold personally and collectively. There’s a part of me that’s like, well then no wonder it’s hard for so many people to listen to creation, to listen to the earth, to listen to animals, to listen to the wind, weather patterns. So yes, that sense of wonder, even childlike wonder, I think wonder is scary to us, especially in seasons where we’re more threatened with fear and terror because wonder opens our heart to possibility. It opens our heart to beauty and actually opens our heart to want to live and co-create life for others on behalf of others. So it’s wonder is actually a very risky kind of play. I think.
Dan: I agree in some sense, how do we talk about wonder without the phrase before it childlike-wonder. Which I saw a photo of a dear friend who took his 6-year-old grandson to a really good place to fish, and they were hoping for an 8 inch, 10 inch trout would have been fabulous. Well, this boy’s first trout was a 22 inch rainbow that he fought personally for a long season, not letting his grandfather touch the rod and finally brought it in. So the grandfather the grandson are holding this fish together and grandfather’s face is phenomenally joyous, but compared to his grandson, oh goodness, the level of joy, wonder, but here’s the key word, innocence. It was so delicious to see that it brought just tears. This boy will have for the rest of his life this image… Well, it could ruin him because he might think that’s his fishing future, but what a beginning to be able to hold that sense of my breath is taken away, which is so interesting because what we’re talking about is speech, but you don’t enter into speech without your speech being taken away. That sense of are you willing to bear wonder and innocence where your mouth is open? But there are no words because you’re silenced in the presence of what the word has brought.
Rachael: I just want to make sure we clarify. When you say the word you’re talking about Jesus, the trinity, something of the word being embedded in all that exists, not just words but the word.
Dan: Yeah. Again, thank you. Let’s just say yes and yes, I’m talking about the word.
Rachael: Yes and yes. Okay, I like that. Yes and yes. I only laugh because my daughter who is two, I am in this space of giving her choices, so I’ll be like, yes or no, this or that, and instead of picking one, she’ll go, yes or no, this or that. So now I’m like, I’m going to start saying yes and yes to her to get her to say yes.
Dan: Well notice what has to happen with regard to young beings or all of us. We’ve got a labor, there is a certain degree of laboring to gain clarity and therefore with no presumption that we actually understand each other, a kind of innocent stance of curiosity to have our ears, our senses open to receive. That’s again, almost every walk Becky and I do. We walk early in the morning, but she sees things even in the dark. And I’m like, what am I going to see today through her eyes? And in that, if I don’t have that, wow. Well, wow, how did you, we were walking one day and all of a sudden she stopped and she said, Point your flashlight in that tree. I’m telling you it’s dark. I point the flashlight and 20 yards away this beautiful owl staring at us. And I’m like, how did you? And she said, I just heard, not the sound, but I heard something. So having ears to hear the word embedded, not only in words, but in the presence of an owl, tree, as you put earlier wind, we meant to be taken by how the word is embedded. And if we’re not being taken by the beauty of the leaves that are falling by the clouds that move in, in the sudden storm that shows how are we going to be prepared for the word as the king of all words and the king of all speech. I think that’s where I’m looking for myself right now to say advent for me is shutting up and not so much, not speaking, but trying to tune my ears into a listening to what’s around me. Conversations, conversations in print, conversations between Becky and I, my children, all that to say, do I anticipate that the word will reveal the word?
Rachael: Part of my quiet in this particular moment is really wanting to make sure I’m following where you’re going and thinking about our listeners following where we’re going because we’re in some ways, John, in using the language of the word brings a very philosophical, I mean the gospel of John has this very mysterious kind of this ethereal mysticism that’s beautiful and it is in some ways showing us what it is we’re telling people to listen for the word. And so I’m just wanting to make sure I know what you’re talking about when you talk about the word and really the why, because I agree with you and part of what I’ve always loved about the advent season and thinking about the wonder that God came to be with us and not just as a spirit being but in bones, in the womb, God came in the vulnerability of the womb to be with us. There’s such a wonder to that, and I know in the calendar we really adopted pagan rituals of celebrating Christmas, and it probably likely wasn’t that Jesus was born, at least in the northern hemisphere, in the dead of winter. So it’s like, I know in some ways it’s a story ritual that we live out, but I’ve also always loved that the wonder of seeing beauty and goodness even in the darkness as the days get shorter and the nights get longer. And so I feel like I’m tracking. I just want to make sure that I’m tracking
Dan: Oh look, I have certainly been accurately accused of confusing myself to the point where I’m chasing my tail. But let’s see if I can come back to confuse more by saying, the Greek word used here is logos. Most people know that. But what often doesn’t get said is that the concept of logos is deeply embedded in Greek philosophy. And Plato, Aristotle, almost all presocratics would’ve used the concept of logos, but logos, the word was more that is principle, that there is something thematically true and patterned in the world. The radicality of this is the word’s a person, the word’s got a face, the word has a name and the word made everything that bears some sense of the impress. We’re not talking about God as a pantheistic category, but we’re talking about the reality that the words marked everything. Everything created bears something of speech that reveals the word that is Jesus. So when we look at an owl in the middle of a dark morning, and if it doesn’t take your breath away, it can and should eventually bring you to a sense of like, Jesus. Wow, what a way to reveal yourself. Thank you. That’s why as we come to this category of elephants hearkening their tribe to grieve. Crows, I’m not particularly thrilled that they hold vengeance for 17 years. But again, how remarkable that they interact, they talk, they use tools, they make plans, and they make you pay all that ought to again, at least cause your head to go, oh my goodness, what world has the word made? And so word and words revealed even in quote things. That’s what we’re talking about, this intersection that the word begins, John and a whole slew of books end John, all that needs to be held as Jesus. What are you up to that you have chosen such an entry. And what do I do with the reality that your entry subverts everything? The power of my words tends to accumulate your vulnerability, your surprise, the fact that you are inviting me through speech to silence. And yet you are showing that trees are connected. They’re not merely competitive, each fighting for the closest access to the sun. They actually share nutrients to one another through their root systems that they keep trees that are suffering from dying. Are you kidding? Yeah, it’s so true. To be able to say the word is creating communion, and in that communion, we should be surprised that there’s another entity in the universe that intends to, shall we say, bring not the voice of praise, but the cacophony of chaos. In words that I mean slide into untruth, if not outright lies, the father of lies speaks. No wonder we’ve got to, in one sense, honor words, honor them and desire them and ponder and be curious about them, but also have discernment that this is a lie from the bowels of hell, that Haitian immigrants are eating animals in Springfield, Ohio, an outright satanic lie. And those who propagated it knew it wasn’t true. So when we dismiss it, oh, alright, so there was some exaggeration, but it was making a point. Oh, that’s right. So the means as evil as they may be or justified by the ends. Already we’re violating the word when that becomes our way of thinking and using words. So much of this season of advent needs to capture us with that silence. Awe. But with this profundity of desire of I want to use words well for beauty, goodness, truth.
Rachael: Well, and I think in many ways then because we can, especially for those of us socialized in very, very individualistic context, we can think, oh, this is all stuff we’re meant to do in personal contemplation. And there’s certainly a role for that. But the word also draws us to connection and your language, the overwhelming play of paradox. And I would love to hear you put more words to what do you mean by that? Because there’s something in me that goes, yes, the belonging and desire for deeper connection and belonging, that’s not just a kind of connection that co-creates life. Brings life, holds hope in the face of despair. Yeah. Has imagination for beauty and goodness that we’re meant for. So what do you mean by connection and the overwhelming play of paradox?
Dan: Well, I had a conversation with someone very recently, and what they said was, I’m tired of my political party getting beat by people who have more power. We’ve settled too much for love. We need to use a lot more anger and judgment to create a better world. And I’m like, oh, good God. What universe have I just fallen into? That love is viewed as foolish, powerless as somewhat pointless and unchanging. This person’s a believer loves Jesus. And yet when we live in a world where untruths become the truth, where the big lie becomes the means of silencing, those who can simply go, no, that’s just not true. Then we live in a world where the paradox of vulnerability is power. Jesus, the king of kings, the Lord of lords are savior. Again, it can be said a million times and it should be every time something that you go, what? Came in the form, in the presence in a body and needed to have his diapers changed, needed to breastfeed, needed to be rocked, to become calm, to sleep. Oh, that’s enough for me to be able to go. It can’t be. Again. I celebrate it. I believe it’s true. I’d rather see Jesus at 12 and then eventually in twenties and early thirties. That’s my Jesus. But Jesus the baby. There’s something even in the concept of the incarnation that should be so shocking and offensive that again reorients us to what is true power. And therefore the paradox, playful, wild paradox is do I want to become young during this season? And I’m so grateful that I get to be with my grandchildren and they’re still young enough that when the presents are open, I’m like a thousand percent more excited about what they’re going to see and what happens. Oh yeah, okay, yeah, I got a present, let me open it. But even there, I’m like, oh, Dan, can you become through their eyes more innocent about the gifts that are being given to you? So I want, for me, this season, I want for us to love the word, to love words, to be silenced, to have more sense of awe. And in many ways the humility to move toward a vulnerability that askews false power.
Rachael: I’ll say there’s something about that vulnerability to, that speaks to me. It draws me to wonder and connection in ways that God had enough. It’s going to make me cry because I don’t know if I believe this right now when I’m trying to say the place had enough belief in the goodness and possibility of our humanity, or at the very least, Mary’s humanity to entrust God’s self with her body, with her nurturing, with her possibility. And I think I actually need to believe that more than ever something of that Imago Dei that we talk about that image of God in us. That was still possible even after ages and ages of reenacting history, that if it was me, I would be going, no, I don’t trust any of you with my vulnerability. I don’t trust you. You’re not trustworthy. I’m giving up on you. I’d rather turn to fear and hatred as a way of protection. So there is something about not only God’s willingness to come be with us in just the kind of chaos and heartache of this world, but even in a kind of connection that is incredibly vulnerable.
Dan: Yeah. Well, may this Advent prepare us for the remarkable and difficult journey ahead.