Creation Is Already Redemption

“We Franciscans have always believed that the Incarnation was already the Redemption, because in Jesus’s birth God was already saying that it was good to be human, and God was on our side.” So writes Father Richard Rohr, in his devotional Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent. It is hard to argue with the simplicity of Rohr’s point—we don’t have to wait for Easter, for the crucifixion and resurrection, to know how God feels about us—the fact that God comes enfleshed, bearing our image, to experience, birth to death, all that it means to be human, says all that needs to be said on the issue.

However, I don’t think that Rohr takes things far enough. The apostle John starts his gospel far differently than Matthew or Luke. Whereas Matthew and Luke begin by speaking of Jesus’ earthly birth, his conception by the Virgin Mary, John takes a far more mystical, far more transcendent approach, going back to the very beginning. He deliberately evokes images of Genesis in his prologue, deliberately makes claims regarding who, exactly, Jesus is. In Genesis, we read that

New Living Translation Chapter 1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.* 2 The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness.

Already, in these majestic opening lines from Genesis, we can see God the Father, preparing to bring forth everything from nothing; the Spirit, hovering over the forces of chaos and uncreation; and Jesus the Son, the creative and life-giving Word that God speaks to usher his creation, our universe, into existence.

John models his prologue on these verses, writing

New Living Translation Chapter 1

1 In the beginning the Word already existed.

The Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

2 He existed in the beginning with God.

3 God created everything through him,

and nothing was created except through him.

4 The Word gave life to everything that was created,*

and his life brought light to everyone.

5 The light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness can never extinguish it.

Following Genesis, therefore, John tells us:

That Jesus was in the very beginning, with God.

That Jesus himself is in fact God.

That Jesus created our world—indeed, as Paul tells us in Colossians, ‘everything was created through him and for him…he holds all creation together.” (Colossians 1:16-17).

That whatever darkness creation, or we ourselves, might find ourselves in, that darkness cannot stand in the presence of the light of Christ.

Why is all of this important? Why does John go to such lengths to start his story, not with Mary, but with creation? He does so to remind us of something that Rohr also realizes, something that we tend to forget—God is on our sides. We don’t have to wait for Easter; we don’t have to wait, even, for Christmas, to know that we are loved by God. We don’t have to wait for our lives to be perfect, to give up our vices, bad habits, and addictions. We don’t have to wait until we are somehow ‘good enough’ to go to church—or even to go to church, for that matter (although spending time in worship, on a sidenote, is wonderfully important).

You and I have been created. We were quite literally thoughts in the mind of the Triune God that he has breathed life into, thoughts that he found so magical, so incredible, that he had to give those thoughts life to do them justice. You are a masterpiece painted by the universe’s greatest painter, a sublime work of art that Picasso or Dali could never do justice to. Why wait for Easter, or Christmas, in other words, to know that God is on our sides, on YOUR side, when creation itself loudly proclaims how God feels, each and every day? The same God that said creation was not just good, but very good, after all (Genesis 1:31), has never changed his mind about what he has made—and that includes you.

Who here hasn’t walked through darkness? Who here, with the possible exception of the young, hasn’t had a Davidic moment of walking through the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23:4)—and, unlike David, fearing the evil lurking in the darkness? Who here hasn’t been anxious and afraid for what the future might bring, for the medical issues that never seem to cease and only seem to increase in scope, for the lemons that life keeps throwing our way that completely derail all of our most carefully laid plans and intentions?

Why do we spend an entire month on Advent leading up to Christmas? We do we focus, every year, on hope, peace, joy, and love? I dare say it is because we most need to hear these themes, to be reminded of their truth, because oftentimes they are realities in name only, things we hear preached, but not things that we live. We spend so much time preparing for Christmas, in other words, because it simply seems too good to be true.

Good triumphing over evil? Light conquering the darkness? The God of all that is not only deigning to come to our world, but choosing to come as a baby of all things, and to a poverty-stricken couple in a backwards territory of a worldwide empire? The idea that God just might care, not just for his creation, but me as an individual? For most of us, we give lip service to these ideals, hear them preached every Christmas…but it takes a lifetime to come to believe them, to allow these hopeful and hope-filled truths to seep deep into our dysfunctional, damaged, cynical souls.

So this Christmas, celebrate the birth, not just of the Babe, but of the Creative Word that gave you life. Find hope in Jesus’ coming, that your greatest Advocate, God Himself, has come and will someday come again. Make peace with who you are and where you are in life, knowing that God will not leave you damaged, but will work on restoring you to what he always meant you to be. Take joy even in the pains that we go through in life, knowing that God himself, coming Enfleshed, experienced both laughter and tears, joys and sorrows. And, through all of this, learn to grow in love, love for God, love for your neighbor, and perhaps, most of all, love for you yourself—for a man who is at war with himself and who he is and who he was always meant to be can never truly love or be at peace with anyone else, God or man.

And perhaps, as we grow in hope, peace, joy, and love, the magic of Christmas, far from coming for a few scant moments every year, will find a permanent place in our hearts in life. Perhaps the darkness that surrounds us will begin to ebb and fade away, to reveal that either it was never as bleak and hopeless as we imagined, or likely rather will simply reveal that the light is so much more glorious than our wildest imaginations. And perhaps, as our own lives begin to glow with the Light building inside of us, a light that as Jesus said cannot be hid (Matthew 5:15), we will begin to reflect that Light into the lives of those around us, so that they, too, trapped in their own chains and pains, can see a great light (Isaiah 9:2).

I want to close with an Ode written by Cosmas of Maiuma (Kanon for the Fifth Day of the Great Week, Ninth Ode), that perfectly expresses what John in his Gospel is trying to say:

The Father begot me, creative Wisdom, before the ages;

He established me as the beginning of his ways

For the works now mystically accomplished

For though I am the uncreated Word by nature,

I make my own the voice

Of the nature I have now assumed.

As I am a man

In reality, not a mirage,

So divinized is the nature which,

By the manner of the exchange,

Is united to me.

Wherefore know that I am one Christ

Who saves that of which and in which I am.

Christmas is here! The babe has been born! The babe will grow and mature, beginning to share with us the Good News that God is on our side, that Christ, having assumed our nature and lived as one of us, now speaks on our behalf, making our voices, our pleas, his voice.

Or, to put it more simply, with Rohr, Incarnation is already redemption. And, if you dare as I do to go even further, Creation itself is already redemption.