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Advent 2025 December 20

 The four gospels all start differently. 

Matthew: like a good Jew, with a chronology of "begats" to link Jesus back to antiquity and Abraham and Adam. 

Mark: Let's get this part started: John the Baptist's ministry. 

Luke: Let's get some context here; Why I'm writing this and when it started. 

John: Takes a totally different approach; he goes back to Genesis 1, in a way. 

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 were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not [a]comprehend it.

As I wrote yesterday, tomorrow is the darkest day of the year. Yet light shines in physical darkness; "the sun comes up, it's a new day dawning" as the song goes; "His mercies are new every morning." 

Light is the source of life. "Let there be light." God said at the beginning. 

John's prologue is almost impenetrably deep. We read it like we understand it. It is about the power and eternality and trinitarian character and both the immanence and the transcendence of God. 

The darkness "did not comprehend" the light. This phrase, in a way, casts a shadow over John's gospel. It defines and informs so much of the rest of it--the opposition to Jesus by his own people, whom John really takes to task so often with his reference to "the Jews." (And he's been accused of antisemitism against his own people.) "Comprehend" can also to translated "overcome." When we comprehend something, we think of it as "understanding." It is, but more. Comprehend implies a level of power over something, in this case the light of God, which is the life God gives. 

The darkness that existed then and that still does does not understand the light of God and it does not overcome or conquer it. The light overcomes the darkness--it shines. 

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