In the song, ‘Do-re-mi’, from ‘The Sound of Music’, Julie Andrews, as Maria, sings: “Let's start at the very beginning / A very good place to start”. Now it is difficult to argue with that commonsense approach; but what does it mean? For Maria it meant going back to basics when learning to read and to sing.
After he was raised from the dead, Jesus took a similar approach with his disciples:
“O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And, beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24.25-27 ESV)
But, what do the (Old Testament) Scriptures say concerning Jesus? Is it only the bits where we can see a clearly fulfilled prophecy, say verses in Isaiah that the Gospel writers quote? Or, is there more to what Jesus said than merely pulling a few texts out and saying: “see, prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus”? John’s Gospel helps us here. At the start of John’s Gospel we here words that are both familiar and strange: “In the beginning was the Word ...” John is taking us back to the beginning, he is reminding us what happened, but he is saying something new, something that we know from Genesis, but something that was not clear until Jesus spoke. Jesus is the Word of God; not just the mouthpiece, not a mere messenger, or a public address system sounding out the words of God: no, Jesus is the ‘Word of God’. When Jesus speaks, it is God speaking. When God speaks, it is his Word at work. The Son of God, Jesus, is the Word of God.
So, when we go back to the beginning and read the opening words of Genesis we see that when God speaks all things into existence, the Son (Word) of God and Spirit of God were active in creating all things. This is what John’s Gospel tells us (John 1.3), and it is also what we hear elsewhere in the New Testament: e.g. Colossians 1.15-17, Hebrews 1.1-4. Starting at the beginning should remind us that God acts together, Father, Son and Spirit. Just as we see this in the creation of everything, we should also see that same close living and working relationship as God sustains all things, and as God redeems His people; God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit in a close living and working relationship.
