FROM WORD TO LIFE : John 1.14 (Prof.Jimi ZACKA)

The word was made flesh and it dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. And we contemplated his glory, a glory like that of the Only Begotten Son, who came from the Father.  John 1:14

 

Speech is the quality that defines man. No other creature has the ability to communicate in thoughtful, articulate, creative and sensitive ways. As we shall see, man's words are vested with a power to shape the universe in the same way that God originally gave life to the world through the word. Our words even have the ability to change the reality of time, as well as the status of people. This shows how much the word is the foundation of the human being. I am not just talking about verbal speech (logos) but about all the forms of language we know, even rhema.

Moreover, the evangelist John has a way of introducing us to his gospel. Nothing to do with the other accounts of Jesus' life in the three Gospels. John invites us to know another Jesus. The one he calls the Word.  Initially, nothing. If not the Word and God (John 1:1-3). John differentiates God and the Word without separating them. A Word that comes to fill the empty space. Everything happens as if, from the outset, these few words: beginning, word, God, existence, life, light, find an immediate echo in us as a human being. An echo that reveals to us that everything begins with a word. With a scream, the first breath of a newborn. All our stories begin with a word, with a word. A yes, a no. The word is given, shared, received. With the word, we begin a life, a story: we build, we destroy. We say and we contradict. Speech has inevitable consequences in our lives. It always sets us in motion, arouses in us multiple emotions. With the word, we bless and curse. We love and hate. With speech, we recognize the other and we are recognized by the other. Nothing is more unbearable than silence or to remain suspended from a word that one expects and that does not come. The Gospel of John thus reminds us that it is God who chose the vector of the word to reveal Himself to man. He chose in man what is most human to reveal his most divine part. John's God is a God who speaks. He is a God who reveals himself through the word. But this God does not speak to just any creature. He speaks to us humans. God speaks to us who possess this faculty of being able to exist in exchange, in relationship, through the word. This is what John 1:14 wants to tell us: "The Word has become a man and he has dwelt among us" (v.14).

This means that if God speaks to us, this Word must be lived. This Word must grow in us to become our word, a palpable reality in our lives and for our neighbors. In other words, our word must be imbued with His Word. Indeed, the word must be a vector of life between men. The word must endow man with the ability to give life to the other. Because, to speak is to accept to take the risk of being. Not just to be, but to become someone turned towards the other to exist.

By His Word God invites man to speak himself. Note that in the Garden of Eden, God does not place "ready-made" words in Adam's mouth. "He waits to see" what words man will imagine and then speak, words indispensable to carry out his responsibility as master of the earth. The language to which God invites man goes beyond a simple utilitarian function. God also provokes in man words of wonder, enthusiasm, admiration: When God presents Eve to Adam, he cries out: "This time behold the one who is the bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh." (Gn2.23). Likewise, he proposes to man to assume important responsibilities.  He specifies them in verse 15: "God establishes man in the garden to cultivate and keep him." And, a little further, in verse 19: "God brings animals to man to see as he would call them, that every living being may bear the name that man would give him." God does not do everything for man. It invites it to assume its own responsibilities. With this word, God shows how sensitive he is to the social needs of man. God knows adam needs him, but he also recognizes that his own presence and word are not enough for him! Adam also needs human companionship: someone who would be both like him and different from him. God fills this need through the creation of Eve.

In the African tradition, the word of the wise is creative and constitutes the vital force, and the human breath depends on it. That is why talking to the other or the other means renewing creation itself, giving it life back and ensuring its sustainability. Words are imbued with creative power and the sacred. In addition, African societies, in their diversity, consider speech as an essential element of community cohesion. Speech, in its social function, has a vital power. Thus, the body and speech are closely linked and considered as constituent elements of man. The conceptions of speech as power and of speech as essence and reality imply that of creative speech.  This is why the palaver tree occupies a prominent place in African societies. Faced with serious problems of existence: birth, marriage, death, Africans meet to reflect, to talk together in order to support each other in the face of the happy or unfortunate event.

But speech, as a principle of life, primacy, prevalence of a social system, today opens a veil to a situation that is imposed. It is a question here of saying whether one can still be validly "master of one's word" in the age of globalization.  Moreover, at a time of all-out exchanges, at a time when we are talking about universal civilization, at a time when the entire planet is committed to the rendezvous of a "single thought", can we still remain validly "owner" of our word? In a sense, no. In a sense, yes. Yes, because the human word potentially contains, from the beginning, the possibility of being at the service of more humanity, of a more symmetrical social bond, more respectful of the other and sweeter to live. It is part of his being and has meaning only through man. They and he are therefore consubstantial and presuppose bilaterally. But for human speech to be efficient, it must be imbued with the Word of God. That is why it is absolutely important for us Christians, who want to seek God, to ask ourselves the following question: what place does the Word of God occupy in my life?

If we bring the Word of God into us, it invades us to judge us, and to sustain us. And through this double action--judgment and support-we are entering more and more into an intimate relationship, of love with the One who is the Word full of grace and truth.  

Prof. Jimi ZACKA , PhD