Fwd: Yeshua (ישוע) Further Contemplative reflection on The Paradox and Beauty of the Incarnation of God focusing on Joh…
Gabrielle Dean
Before there was anything that could be seen or named, before there was light or darkness, before there was earth or sky, there was God the Word. Already this unsettles any small or utilitarian understanding of Jesus. The Messiah is not introduced as a religious teacher, a moral guide, or even first and foremost as a saviour responding to human failure. He is revealed as eternally present, dwelling within the very life of God.
Yeshua (ישוע) Further Contemplative reflection on The Paradox and Beauty of the Incarnation of God focusing on John 1.
A personal and contemplative reflection on the opening words of the Gospel of John 1:1-5 & 9
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So for my faith as an Anglican Contemplative Christian, it is my view that too much Christianity that is projected into the world is too over focused on Redemptive theology as the basis of conservative and reformed theology with too little basis or understanding of incarnational theology. As a result we end with a bordering gnostic unhealthiness reading embodied understanding (including human sexuality), conservative religion that is overly judgemental and forms of Christian fundamentalism and nationalism that does not attend to the new covenant and take away so many peoples lives to state of enslavement/unhealthiness. So these series of posts seek to unpack the beauty and profound incarnational truths of God.
In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God “πρὸς τὸν θεόν” (2) and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God (3) … What has come into being (4) in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not over take it. (5) … The true light which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. (9).
These are profound words of hope and love. Notice no words of sin or guilt and negativity, but the profound and beautiful paradox of God choosing to become a human being. This is the ultimate act of love. That the divine chose diminishment of the God-self at God’s choice, to express and reconnect in love with humanity, and that humanity is you and me.
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As I write these words I am crying. Most of my life as been a struggle of il-health, of abandonment, homophobia and the sense of inadequacy in a brutal and highly competitive world when I was born weak and in the wrong classes and the need to fight to get anywhere in my life, and still, I really do not feel like I belong and feel activity excluded by many because of homophobia and classism. I know that darkness and I have struggled against it all my life.
And so these words from John 1 are profound. The realisation that if I or you reading this were the only human beings, Jesus would still have been incarnated and would have come into being to re-establish love. This is why the Logos here, the Yeshua who comes, did not come in judgement but in love. You and I are seen, known and loved by this God in a way I have never been seen or known before. I am crying now as I am writing this, because nothing comes close to the liberation I feel, and I hope you feel, as these words come home to you. They are core to my more contemplative faith.
Just before I turn to John 1, just a comment on the name Jesus or Yeshua. This is a common short form of Yehoshua (Joshua), both meaning “YHWH saves” or Jehovah “salvation,” and is the name used in Jewish texts and by believers today, differing from the Greek Iēsous that led to the version “Jesus”. So this is a significant name.
But back to John 1 and in particular verses 1-5 and 9.
In the beginning was the Word. John opens his Gospel by taking us not forward into a story but backwards into mystery, beyond memory, beyond history, beyond everything. He invites us to contemplate a reality that precedes all events. Before there was anything that could be seen or named, before there was light or darkness, before there was earth or sky, there was God the Word. Already this unsettles any small or utilitarian understanding of Jesus. The Messiah is not introduced as a religious teacher, a moral guide, or even first and foremost as a saviour responding to human failure. He is revealed as eternally present, dwelling within the very life of God.
The Word was with God, and the Word was God. John holds together distinction and unity in a single phrase. The Word is with God turned towards God, in relationship, in communion - and yet the Word is God, fully participating in the divine life. Here, at the very opening of the Gospel, we are drawn into the mystery that Christians would later name as Trinity: not a solitary God locked within divine self-sufficiency, but a God whose very being is relational, self-giving, and shared. Life begins and is sustained by this eternal communion. It is not the result of divine isolation, but the overflow of love (kenosis).
This matters deeply for how we understand the incarnation of God. If Jesus is present with God at creation, then incarnation is not an interruption of God’s purposes but their fulfilment. The one through whom all things come into being is the same one who enters into what has been made.
All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. John is clear and uncompromising here. There is nothing in creation that is alien to Yeshua the Word. There is no corner of reality that the Word does not already know from the inside. Long before Bethlehem, the Word is already intimately involved with the world.
From a contemplative perspective, this reshapes how we pray and how we see. We are not trying to reach a distant God through effort or technique. We are learning to become attentive to a presence that precedes us, surrounds us, and sustains us. The Word is not waiting at the end of our spiritual striving; the Word is already at the beginning, already present in the depths of our being, because all things are held in him.
When John names Jesus as the Word the Logos, he is choosing a term rich with meaning. A word is never neutral. It carries intention. It expresses inner life. When we speak, we disclose ourselves. Our words reveal our loves, our fears, our values, our character. Even when we try to hide, something of us still comes through. In this sense, Jesus as the Word is God speaking God’s own self into the world. Not information about God, but self-revelation. Not a divine message delivered from afar like the prophets, but God’s inner life made audible, visible, and tangible within human history.
This is why the incarnation is so radically different from any notion of God sending instructions or commandments alone. God does not simply tell us what God is like; God shows us by becoming human. Jesus is the communication of God in human form. His way of being in the world - how he loves, how he listens, how he notices those who are unseen, how he refuses to dominate or coerce - is not secondary to theology. It is theology. In this Word, this Logos this Emmanuel, God’s character is revealed not through abstraction but through relationship.
In him was life, and the life was the light of all people. Life here is not merely existence; it is the fullness of being alive in God. It is the life that animates creation and draws it towards communion. Light, in John’s Gospel, is always about truth made visible, reality unveiled, meaning disclosed. This light is not reserved for a spiritual elite or a religious inner circle. It is for all people. The Word does not come to narrow God’s love but to make it unmistakably clear and expansive for all.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.John does not deny the darkness of the world. He does not minimise suffering, violence, alienation, or despair. Instead, he names darkness honestly and places it within a larger, deeper reality. Darkness is real, but it is not final. It cannot extinguish the light because the light does not originate within the world’s fragile systems. It comes from God’s own being. For those who sit in silence with God, this becomes a profound source of hope. The light does not flicker because of us. It shines steadily, patiently, even when we cannot see it.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. This is one of the most expansive and generous statements in Scripture. Christ’s light is not confined by borders of belief, culture, or religious belonging. It addresses every human life. Whether named or unnamed, the light of Christ seeks to illuminate each person from within their own story. Incarnational theology insists that God meets humanity where humanity actually is, not where we think it should be - resisting shame and punitive forms of atonement theory and most important of all, resists requiring God to be punitively angry demanding sacrifice, demanding blood. For incarnational theology - this borders on heresy if not paganism.
This has profound implications for how we understand mission, salvation, and spiritual life. If Christ is the light that enlightens everyone, then God is already at work in the world before the Church arrives, before words are shared, before doctrines are explained. Our task is not to bring God into situations where God is absent, but to learn how to recognise and participate in what God is already doing. Contemplation trains us in this kind of seeing: a way of attending to reality that expects God to be present, active, and communicating beyond anything of our agency.
The incarnation also dismantles any spirituality that despises the material world or treats the body as a problem to be overcome (shame and self-hatred). If the Word through whom all things were made becomes flesh, then matter is not a mistake. Bodies are not obstacles to the Christian path (the heresy of gnosticism). Human vulnerability is not something God avoids. In Jesus, God embraces the fullness of human life - birth, growth, friendship, fatigue, grief, and even death. Incarnational theology proclaims that God’s love has no limits.
For this reason, these verses are not simply about who Jesus is; they are about who God is and who we are invited to follow and be transformed by or become (theosis). If God chooses to communicate God’s self through humility, proximity, and love, then our own lives are called into that same pattern. We are invited to become, in our own small and imperfect ways, words of God—lives that communicate the unconditional love of God, kindness, and compassion through presence rather than power.
And this is where joy emerges, not as sentimentality, but as deep assurance. The joy of John’s prologue here is the joy of knowing that reality is grounded in love. That the universe is not indifferent or hostile at its core. That the Wordwho was in the beginning has entered time and history, not to condemn the world, but to give it life. Emmanuel - God with us - is not a seasonal idea, but the permanent shape of God’s relationship with creation.
In contemplative prayer, we return again and again to this mystery, this paradox as a deep spiritual truth with open hearts. We sit with the Word who was before all things and who comes to us now in silence and stillness. We allow ourselves to be seen by the light that enlightens everyone. And slowly, as we consent to this presence, we discover that the Word continues to speak - not aggressively, or loudly or forcefully, but gently, illuminating our darkness from within, drawing us into the joy of a God who has always been with us, and who always will be despite those who have to make God angry and punitive.
This is why for me, the Christ Mass as the feast of the incarnation of God is AS IMPORTANT to Holy Week and Easter. Because of this intention of God to bridge the gap between the God-self and Us. What love this is, and it goes very deep for me.
But more of that later in my second reflection next week.
So I encourage you as a contemplative practice. Why not memorise some of the opening verses of John 1 and use it as an anchor phrase for a regular contemplative practice.
As with Advent, an audio and written reflection for the season of Christmas will go live Christmas Eve. It has been created to you can dip in and out of this as a contemplative practice for the season of Christmas.
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