God's untiring care for his creation

Proverbs 8: 1, 22-31(page 532 in our pew Bibles) A beautiful description on the role of "Wisdom" alongside God in the act of creation described as a person just like "the word made flesh"

Colossians 1: 15-20 (page 983 in our pew Bibles) A wonderful counterpart to John's prologue written by Paul describing Jesus as "the firstborn of all creation" 

John 1:1-14 (page 886 in our pew Bibles) Jesus is the "word made flesh" the famous piece unambiguously ascribing divinity to Jesus. 

We start with a lovely light touch description of the creation with God and a female companion “Wisdom” working together to create the world.

The presence of wisdom and her delight in the human race ensure that the creation is far more than a machine that is left to run on its own once it has been made.

The figure of wisdom personifies God’s continual ongoing untiring care for his creation, including care for us, even though we can be so destructive of what God has made. It is this reason that Jews have connected Wisdom with the law (Torah) and why Christians have also connected it with the divine Logos in John’s gospel.

But before we go there I’d like to dwell a while on what Paul wrote in Colossians because this is also a colossal and profound piece of writing.

One of the main problems of the Colossian church, which Paul had heard about but never visited, was syncretism or blending Christianity with other religious beliefs and practices and so a major role of this letter was to explain the absolute comprehensive uniqueness and sufficiency of Christ. Nothing and no one else is needed.

Completeness is the goal of this piece with culminates in the all-encompassing universalist declaration;

“and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven by making peace through the blood of Christ”

In this piece Paul asserts that “all things in heaven and earth were created” so you see how the word of God and Holy Wisdom are coming very close in function and meaning.

I always say at this point that the greatest church in all Christendom until it was overrun by the Muslims was the Haghia Sophia in Istanbul which I’m sure many of us here have visited.

It is dedicated to Jesus Christ the word made flesh and was called the Haghia Sophia which means the “Holy Wisdom”.

Jesus is God’s overwhelming concern and care for wayward humankind made flesh – like Wisdom in Proverbs “delighting in the human race” and “rejoicing in our world”.

It is because cares and has always cared about us that Jesus was sent to save us.

And so we turn to that central and well known prologue of John’s gospel and the other central motif – that of light.

A light shining in the darkness, a light that enlightens everyone was sent into the world, but not sent as an Angel or a human King with orders for us to kneel before our God but as a  human being who shares all our frailties, is subject to the same temptations, hurts and suffers and can be grieved just like us, will die just as we will die, but was also born just as we are born.

The human face of God is what sets our religion apart from all others. God chose to identify totally with us which demonstrates how much he values and cares for us.

He identifies with us, suffers with us and dies with us, and the greatest gift that he could give us is that because this human being was raised, we will all be raised with Him.