In the beginning was the Word

Finding comfort in the fullness of time; a prayerful reading of the opening lines of St. John's Gospel.

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. John 1:1-3 DRB

St. John transports us all the way back to the beginning of Genesis to bring the story of Adam to its long awaited closure in Christ. The seeds of our understanding of God's triune nature lay gently within the life-giving soil of these poetic words. Before creation and its countless dramas that would unfold was the Word (Λόγος, - Logos), which was distinct from God the Father, and yet was God.

By these words we are meant to know that Christ was before all else. His existence was not a reaction to deteriorating circumstances, but a necessary precondition for the liturgical procession of creation itself to commence. As God begins speaking things into being in the first chapter of Genesis, we know that Christ too was there.

While the Holy Trinity is indeed mysterious, what is made plain by these opening lines is that Christ was truly sent in the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4). This moment was one of God's choosing that truly could have been made at any point before this since Christ existed before all else.

Our lives are a series of moments, and in the ones that wound us it's hard to trust that this too is part of God's plan. Yet the revelation of Christ came at the exact moment of God's choosing, most intimately shared with only a handful of people, and despite thousands of years between that moment and now, you and countless others have come to hear about it, believe, and be saved by it. You too have come to exist in the fullness of time, so trust in the Lord in those moments "when all other lights go out."