Psalm 36: 9, 10; John 1: 1-5

Of the 800,000  words in the English language. 300,000 are technical terms. The average person knows 10,000 words and uses 5,000 in everyday speech. A journalist knows approximately 15,000 and uses around 10,000.  But there are only a handful of words that really sum up the important things in life.  We have already talked about some of those in different cultures.  But for Christians there is one word that sums up all mean and the Word is Jesus or Christ.

There is a Christian song that describes Jesus as “name above all names.” By looking at the classic text today in John we could rephrase that as:”Jesus Word above all Words.”  This text is one of the gems of the Bible.  It is great because it is both clear and mysterious at the same time.  It is like what it describes. It is full of light, but at the same time it is out of focus. If you are ever going to meditate on a text and really be with a text this one is a great one.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word with God and the Word was God.”  Friends, all the words in this text are simple, everyday words.  But together they feel magical.   So let me do something unusual and tell you about a story in the magical realism tradition. The short story “Two Words” was written by Isabel Allende and below I will share a significant section of it in the hope will give us a clearer understanding of the Word. It is a tale about a girl who went by the name of Belisa Crepusculario. She had extreme desire to be the best at selling words, since the first time she saw words in the sports section of the newspaper. Belisa learned to read from a priest for 20 pesos.  She made her living selling words. She journeyed through the country from the high cold mountains to the burning coasts, stopping at fairs and in markets where she set up four poles covered by a canvas awning under which she took refuge from the sun and rain to minister to her customers. She did not have to peddle her merchandise because from having wandered far and near, everyone knew who she was. Some people waited for her from one year to the next, and when she appeared in the village with her bundle beneath her arm, they would form a line in front of her stall. Her prices were fair. For five centavos she delivered verses from memory, for seven she improved the quality of dreams, for nine she wrote love letters, for twelve she invented insults for irreconcilable enemies. She also sold stories, not fantasies but long, true stories she recited at one telling, never skipping a word. This is how she carried news from one town to another. People paid her to add a line or two: our son was born,    so-and-so died, our children got married, the crops burned in the field. Wherever she went a small crowd gathered around to listen as she began to speak, and that was how they learned about each others’ doings, about distant relatives, about what was going on in the civil war. To anyone who paid her fifty centavos in trade, she gave the gift of a secret word to drive away melancholy. It was not the same word for everyone, naturally… Each person received his or her own word, with the assurance that no one else would use it that way in this universe or the Beyond. “Belisa Crepusculario had been born into a family so poor they did not even have names to give their children. She came into the world and grew up in an inhospitable land where some years the rains became avalanches of water that bore everything away before them and others when not a drop fell from the sky and the sun swelled to fill the horizon and the world became a desert. Until she was twelve, Belisa had no occupation or virtue other than having withstood hunger and the exhaustion of centuries. Belisa Crepusculario saved her life and in the process accidentally discovered writing. In a village near the coast, the wind blew a page of newspaper at her feet. She picked up the brittle yellow paper and stood a long while looking at it, unable to determine its purpose, until curiosity overcame her shyness. She walked over to a man who was washing his horse in the muddy pool where she had quenched her thirst. “What is this?” she asked. “The sports page of the newspaper,” the man replied, concealing his surprise at her ignorance. The answer astounded the girl, but she did not want to seem rude, so she merely inquired about the significance of the fly tracks scattered across the page.”Those are words, child.  That was the day Belisa Crepusculario found out that words make their way in the world without a master, and that anyone with a little cleverness can appropriate them and do business with them. She … bought a dictionary. She poured over it from A to Z and then threw it into the sea.  One day she gave words to a colonel. She explained that for every fifty centavos a client paid, she gave him the gift of a word for his exclusive use. The Colonel shrugged. He had no interest at all in her offer, but he did not want to be impolite to someone who had served him so well. She walked slowly to the leather stool where he was sitting, and bent down to give him her gift. They are yours, Colonel,” she said as she stepped back. “You may use them as much as you please.” But the Candidate did not hear. He was repeating his secret words, as he did more and more obsessively. He said them when he was mellow with nostalgia; he murmured them in his sleep; he carried them with him on horseback; he thought them before delivering his famous speech; and he caught himself savoring them in his leisure time. ..

“Tell me what they are and maybe they’ll lose their magic,” his faithful aide suggested. “I can’t tell them, they’re for me alone,” the Colonel replied.

Now, friends, let’s bring the text and this story together.  God has a Word for us that is even more powerful than the special words Belisa had for her clients.  She gave them words that gave energy to them.  The Word that is Jesus is the Word that is infused with the energy of the universe and gives energy to our lives. Not only does the Word speak to us specifically, it is also the Word that we all share.  It is a Word for each of us individually as well as a Word we all share. It is Word that is connected to all words: verb, nouns, adverbs, articles. Jesus as the Word is both verb and noun, both doing and being.  In response we must be “Christian,” but also “do Christlike things.  May we murmur His name in our sleep and carry it on horseback and in our leisure time and as we serve the world. May the Word always whisper in our ears. Thanks be to God.