"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world." (John 1:1-9 NIV)"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1 NIV)I'm warming up. The spring is upon us. The sky has been clearing and the precipitation getting warmer. I'm anxious for more though. I cannot seem to get enough of that warmth that melts the flesh and thaws the bones. The winter has been long and I have grown tired, tired, tired of the cold, the snow, the ice and the chill that is set deep in my bones. Throw me like a piece of meat on the counter and let my flesh begin to melt. I'm ready to sizzle and sweat. I'm ready for the taste of summer sweat to linger on my lips. I'm ready for summer, garden dirt to to dry underneath my fingernails. I'm ready for shoeless days and bare-feet ambling in the grass.
Lately I've heard the beginning rumblings of crickets in my backyard. It's a welcome sound that I will cherish all summer long. I wish I could store a small cache of them somewhere in my house during the winter. I know, sadly, they don't sing for me. Yet somehow I am permitted to evesdrop every evening. Their song is so majestic, so grand, so peaceful. We have been having warmer evenings so I have been stealing a listen as often as I can. I don't think they mind. I don't think they even notice.
I like beginnings. In the beginning--sometimes I wish I had been there too, at that beginning--now that had to be an amazing thing. Everything was fresh and new. Everything was clean and abundant. Nothing was broken or corrupted--nothing was on it's way down. It was, in God's own words, Good. I don't suspect that those first people had to endure what we call seasons. I like those Narnian times when the winter begins to thaw, but I have to admit that I am looking forward to the time when the Narnian thaw is permanent. In the beginning was the Word. I'm looking forward to the time when the crickets have no reason to stop singing. The beginning of something new is what I'm looking for and the changing of the season--the days when summer takes over and conquers winter again--is merely a marker of the something better that is coming. It's a foretaste, a glimpse, foreshadowing. It is the perfect literature.
When Jesus came down he marked the beginning of the Narnian thaw. He marked the beginning of what God set in motion the day Adam and Eve sinned--nay, before the foundation of the world! Jesus' arrival marks the beginning and the end at the same time. His arrival announces to one an all: it is time to sing, it is time to thaw, it is time for the crickets to make merry. Someone powerful was breaking in and breaking out.
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