Logos
“The lion was pacing to and fro about
that empty land and singing his new song... Polly
was finding the song more and more interesting because she thought she was
beginning to see the connection between the music and the things that were
happening. When a line of dark firs sprang up on a ridge about a hundred yards
away she felt that they were connected with a series of deep, prolonged notes
which the Lion had sung a second before. And when he burst into a rapid series
of lighter notes she was not surprised to see primroses suddenly appearing in
every direction. Thus, with an unspeakable thrill, she felt quite certain that
all the things were coming (as she said) “out of the Lion’s head.” When you
listened to his song you heard the things he was making up: when you looked
round you, you saw them” (C.S. Lewis Magicians Nephew p.126).
Plato,
the Greek philosopher, reasoned there must be an “idea” (or “form”) in the spiritual world that stands behind every
object in the material world, one that preceded its existence. And if that idea
exists, there must be a mind that conceived it and spoke it into being. These
three transcendent realities—a divine mind, an idea, an utterance—Plato combined
into one absolute and named it the “Logos”
(the Word).
Plato was very near the truth, so near, in fact, that early Christians
referred to him as “one of our own.” But though he caught a glimpse of “the true Light that gives light
to every man coming into the world”
(John 1:9), he did not fully comprehend it. Something more was needed,
something tremendous, something yet to come, something the wisdom of man could not
conceive: “The Word (Logos) became
flesh and dwelled among us …” (John 1:14). The divine
Logos and a mortal man together bore
one name: Jesus. This is what Christians call The Incarnation, the final,
irrefutable proof that God really, really
cares.
American
Theologian Frederick Buechner had this to say: “We all want to be certain, we
all want proof, but the kind of proof that we tend to want — scientifically or
philosophically demonstrable proof that would silence all doubts once and for
all — would not, in the long run, I think, answer the fearful depths of our
need at all. For what we need to know, of course, is not just that God exists,
not just that beyond the steely brightness of the stars there is a cosmic
intelligence of some kind to keep the whole show going, but that there is a God
right there in the thick of our day-to-day lives who may not be writing
messages about himself in the stars, but who in one way or another is trying to
get messages through our blindness as we move down here knee-deep in the
fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world. It is not objective proof of God’s existence that we want,
but whether we use religious language for it or not, the experience of God’s
presence. That is the miracle we
are really after, and that is
also, I think, the miracle that we really get” (Secrets in the Dark, p.16).
All
through the Old Testament we read that God has been doing his best to get next
to us, humbling himself, condescending to make himself known, but nothing can
match what happened that night in the little town of Bethlehem. It was there
that the Logos became the little Lord
Jesus, a helpless infant with unfocused eyes and uncontrollable limbs, needing
to be breast–fed, swaddled, cuddled and cared for, “the infinite made
infinitesimally small,” G. K. Chesterton said. That is indeed the miracle we’re really after and the miracle that we got: The Logos become Immanuel: God with us.
John speaks of the Logos in a
most personal way: “That which was from the
beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have
looked upon, and our hands have handled—(this
was) the Word (the eternal Logos)!”
(1 John 1:1).
John was astounded by the thought that he had heard and
seen Plato’s Logos, and held him in his hands.[1]
The one who made up the universe “out
of his head” and spoke it (or sang it) into existence was “pleased as man with
men to dwell.” Why did He do it?
It was love—pure and simple.
David Roper
[1] The Greek word translated
“handled” suggests something more than a tentative touch. It has the thought of
familiarity and affection—perhaps a hug.
