We Are One with the Word of God
by Rev. Cory Coberforward
John 1:1-5
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 all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Isaiah 55:10-13 (Responsive Reading for Live Service)
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return to it without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.
Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord’s renown,
for an everlasting sign that will endure forever.
Read the written message below with music videos
God is with us and empowering us all the time, whatever we call God. God is, in fact, beyond description. Words only point to Divinity, just as words only point to anything else in reality – they are not the reality that they describe. Now, a “word” is a reality unto itself, but the word “tree” is not a tree, only the tree itself is the truth of that tree – words only point to this truth. In this vein, the truth of something is only the reality of it. This makes it interesting that the scriptures say, “the Word was with God and the Word was God.” This reading then goes on to indicate that not only is “the Word” one with God, but all life and all humanity is one with that Word as well - let’s explore this a bit further.
I think the simple place to start in deconstructing John 1’s cryptic and mystical sayings is at the translation. The original Greek word for the “Word” in which all life is, was often used to mean “message” or essentially, an “account.” I think this opens up our understanding of what John 1 means when it opens with, “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 all humanity.”
The thing in which, from which, and through which all things are made, and all life resides, is a message or an account of what it means to be real, which is to be one with God. All real things are part of the expression of God’s universality, God’s infinite Word. This means that the basis of all form is an expression of our fundamental unity with all life and God, and so everything in our lives will always somehow point us back to this unity and this intrinsic wisdom within.
Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt like everything that was happening (or at least the big things) were trying to teach you something? Trying to point you back to perhaps a simpler mindset, a sweeter innocent way of not overthinking, or some other deep insight, peace, or, even, love?
Mystics throughout time have pointed to this truth. That the truth of reality itself is quite literally designed to take us back to our true natures, the deep wisdom that the Bible says is written on our hearts. You could say that even our ignorance of this is part of the expression of God’s desire to have the adventure and pleasure of coming back into knowing theirself through each of us. We are not distant from God, God is the very source of life itself, and as our reading described, God is the Word in which all life resides and whose light is the light of humanity. God is the very message or Word all around us pointing us back to knowing God.
The great scientist and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg agreed with this. He wrote extensively about how Divine Providence was in every little thing that happens, every vibration that makes up God’s Universe, and God’s Message or Utterance. He believed that all things work for the good, eventually, and that all things are part of an ever-developing and expanding expression of this Divine Word: expressed as the reality of heaven, all life, and our universe. Our key ignorance and source of suffering in this process is not knowing our fundamental unity with God, not realizing in our thoughts and feelings that our sense of separate self is just a false conception.
This sense of separation can be found at the root of most of our psychological issues and suffering. We tend to walk around with a deep-felt identification with our bodies and our thoughts, and yet, in our experience we should more closely identify as the very “light” these things arise in, consciousness itself. As the verse says, “In [the Word] was life, and that life was the light of all humanity.”
We are all one as the light and life in God, also called Divine Truth and the Word. And as Swedenborg often wrote, this Divine Truth is nothing without Divine Love, as all truth, form, and reality, is an expression of this Divine Love. All life is Divine Love made manifest, made known. Some might say, “But what about that life or that one? I myself can’t be Divine Love.” But this continues the root of our fundamental problem, our sense of separation. There is no such thing as “this life separate from that one.” All life is one in God and all “things” are unified as an expression of the Word - as a whole! There are no parts in reality – it’s all one, there’s just the illusion of separable parts from the belief in truly separable parts. Separated things are a form of expression, useful as a concept to get things done, to describe our experience of things, and to communicate, but not a fundamental truth in reality. Sort of like saying “the sun rises and gets lower” versus “the earth is turning.”
The more we centre as a separate self, the more susceptible we are to the pitfalls of this false thinking: “I’m not successful, I’m not wanted, I’m lacking,” and the sense of isolation, defensive judgment, and vulnerability that comes with it. One way to overcome this is to notice our unity in the light of awareness. Although we identify as our thoughts and bodies, we are more fundamentally the awareness that these things are experienced in – this open awareness is something we all share and it’s what we most fundamentally mean when we say “I.” “I feel this way. I couldn’t get my mind to work. I saw that my foot was cut.” Even when our minds are upset, awareness itself isn’t. The light of life observes our mind’s upsetness like a car accident on the other side of the road – unperturbed but all-embracing, shining on all things equally in their time just as the scriptures say God does, while still naturally uplifting the good. It is our mind’s sense of separate self that shuns the light on certain things, trying to bury our thinking away from insight and love. And yet our minds still only have life from the light of God, from which they can never truly hide nor escape nor separate from. As John says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
ADDENDUM: Another helpful approach is taking some dedicated time to limit our thinking to the present moment. This means noticing when our thoughts start branching into thinking about the past or future and returning your attention gently back to this moment, noticing our surroundings, observing what we’re doing and the feelings in our bodies. Through this kind of meditative prayer, we are opening to the peace of being and allowing the light of presence to come further forward into our experience.
Blessings,
Cory