I have recently begun practicing Lectio Divina, and I am discovering that there are many faithful ways to approach this ancient discipline of prayerful reading. For now, my practice has been close to the approach of Dallas Willard, sitting slowly with a passage, listening, reflecting, and allowing the text to work on me rather than rushing to master it. The first chapter of John has held my attention for more than a month, and I still feel as though I am only standing at the doorway. What follows is not a finished commentary, but a series of reflections from lingering with the text, asking questions, noticing themes, and trying to hear what God may be inviting me to see.

The Word Became Flesh

John does not begin his Gospel quietly. He opens with a statement so bold, so dense, and so filled with meaning that we could sit with the first five verses for a very long time and still feel as though we had only begun to see what is there. “In the beginning was the Word.” With those words, John pulls us back beyond Bethlehem, beyond Israel, beyond Abraham, beyond Eden, and into the mystery of creation itself.

The echo of Genesis is hard to miss. “In the beginning” is not accidental language. John wants us to hear creation in the background. But he is not merely repeating Genesis. He is revealing something deeper about it. The world was not made by an impersonal force, nor did it emerge from blind chaos. Creation came through the Word, and that Word is not a thing, an idea, or an abstract principle. The Word is personal. The Word is with God, and the Word is God.

This means John is teaching us how to read reality. Jesus is not simply a character who enters history later. He is the One through whom history, creation, life, and light are rightly understood. Before John gives us signs, conversations, healings, conflicts, tears, glory, and the cross, he tells us who Jesus is. Everything that follows must be read in this light.

John also introduces two themes that will continue throughout the Gospel: life and light. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” These words feel simple until we slow down and let them open. Life is not merely biological existence. Light is not merely information. In John, life and light are bound up with the presence of Christ Himself. Later, Jesus will say, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). So the light shining in the darkness in John 1 is not just a symbol. It is a Person.

That is part of why this passage calls us to contemplation. John is not inviting us into vague spirituality or abstract speculation. He is inviting us into Christ-centered contemplation. Some truths are not meant to be rushed past. They are meant to work on us. “In the beginning was the Word.” “In Him was life.” “The light shines in the darkness.” These are not merely statements to analyze. They are truths to receive, to ponder, and to adore.

There is a kind of holy depth here. The riches of God are not shallow. The first chapter of John alone is deep enough to return to again and again. It reminds me that Scripture is not something we master like a textbook. It is more like a vast landscape, or perhaps an ocean, where the surface is real but the depths continue far beyond what we can see at first glance.

That is why I find it meaningful to compare the opening of John’s Gospel with the ending. John begins with the Word through whom all things were made, and then near the end he says that Jesus did many other things, and that if every one of them were written down, the world itself could not contain the books that would be written (John 21:25). The Gospel begins with the eternal Word and ends with the sense that words could never be enough.

There is a beautiful tension there. Christ is truly revealed, yet never exhausted. We can really know Him, but we can never master Him. We are given enough light to follow, but not enough to reduce Him to something manageable. This feels very much like God. Creation itself is vast beyond our comprehension. Every molecule, every star, every creature, every moment has a story known to God. That may go beyond John’s immediate point, but it is still worth pondering. If creation is so vast, and if Christ is the Word through whom creation came to be, then our relationship with God is not narrow or thin. It is immeasurably deep.

Still, the vastness is not vagueness. John does not point us toward an undefined spiritual mystery. He points us to Jesus. The mystery has a face. The depth is personal. The eternal Word becomes flesh. The One through whom all things were made enters the world He made. The Creator steps into creation.

This is why John begins with the deity of Christ. He does not leave us guessing. Before Jesus attends a wedding, before He speaks with Nicodemus, before He meets the woman at the well, before He raises Lazarus, before He washes His disciples’ feet, before He is lifted up on the cross, John tells us that this Jesus is the eternal Word. He is with God, and He is God.

That should shape how we read the rest of the Gospel. The weariness of Jesus is the weariness of the Word made flesh. The compassion of Jesus is the compassion of God revealed in human form. The tears of Jesus are not ordinary tears only. They are the tears of the One through whom all things were made. The cross is not merely the death of a good teacher. It is the self-giving love of the eternal Son.

And that creates a quiet challenge for me. If John begins with Christ as the eternal Word, then Jesus cannot be reduced to a helper for my own plans. He is not an accessory to my life. He is not merely one source of wisdom among many. He is the interpretive center of reality. John seems to ask me from the very beginning: do I start with Christ when I think about life, truth, creation, purpose, and myself, or do I start with myself and then try to fit Christ in afterward?

That is not a small question. It is the kind of question that Lectio Divina forces me to sit with. Not quickly. Not defensively. Not as a theological puzzle to solve and move past. But as an invitation.

Lord Jesus, You are true, and You are inexhaustible. Teach me to know You without trying to master You. Let Your life become my life, and Your light become the light by which I see everything else.

Reflective Questions

• What does it mean that John begins his Gospel, not with Bethlehem, Mary, Joseph, shepherds, or angels, but with “In the beginning”?
• Do I approach Jesus first as a teacher, example, comforter, or moral guide, or do I first receive Him as the eternal Word through whom all things were made?
• When John speaks of life and light, where do I most need Christ to bring life into what feels dead, and light into what I do not yet understand?
• What would change if I stopped treating creation as ordinary background scenery and began seeing it as a vast testimony to the Word who made it?
• How often do I rush past deep truth because I want an explanation faster than I want contemplation?
• If John’s Gospel begins with the eternal Word and ends by saying the world itself could not contain all the books that could be written about Jesus, what does that tell me about the depth of the One I am trying to follow?
• Am I willing to know Christ truly without pretending I can ever exhaust the mystery of who He is?

Excerpt

John opens his Gospel with creation, life, light, and the eternal Word. These first verses invite us to contemplate Christ not merely as a figure in history, but as the One through whom all history, creation, and our relationship with God are rightly understood.

A New Hope, But Older