Just the Right Word ~ Valerie Ronald

 

There are so many of them flying around the atmosphere today ˗˗ words. They fill up our air space, bookshelves, cyberspace, even our own minds. Yet I confess, I love words. They are the vehicles for the expression of our inner heart and spirit. They reach across the lonely space between each one of us to voice our commonality, to make the connection that lights up the eyes and says, you know! ˗˗ you understand!  

The ultimate communication from God to man came in the form of a Word.

“In the beginning the Word already was. The Word was in God’s presence, and what God was, the Word was.” (John 1:1 Revised English Version) 

The apostle John was not writing about speech but rather a person, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Readers of John’s day would understand the Logos (Word), as coined by Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, “to designate the divine reason or plan which coordinates the entire universe.”1  But John took it a step further, declaring the Logos, at a particular time in history, took on flesh and became a man ˗˗ Jesus of Nazareth. The powerful statement beginning the gospel of John declares the deity and eternal majesty of Christ from the outset, so that the stories of Jesus in the next 21 chapters are read in the context of His divinity. 

This is the Word voiced without time constraints ˗˗ always speaking, always heard, uttered into the future. This Word, this perfect expression of what God is like, was spoken into the world at a specific time for a specific purpose. “So the Word became flesh; He made His home among us, and we saw His glory, such glory as befits the Father‘s only Son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) How the immensity expressed in the small, three-letter word God, is contained within another small, three-letter word, man, is the unknowable mystery of the incarnation.

My love of words often has me searching for just the right one to express my thoughts in writing. My desk holds a dictionary and thesaurus which give the meanings and nuances of thousands of words. Finding the perfect word for my purpose is a satisfying accomplishment.

God found just the right Word on the first Christmas. To convey His love for mankind, He knew He needed to speak into their lives in a way they could relate to and understand. So He placed His most precious Word, His own son, into the body of a helpless baby. From a human womb the Word was birthed to live among us, fully man and fully God.

This Word wasn’t vague or indecipherable. He spoke truth and hope into darkened hearts, healed broken bodies and spirits, cut through hypocrisy and legalism. He walked dusty roads and broke bread with His friends. The depth of His humanity is found in the shortest verse in the scriptures, “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35) We can’t know what He experienced as God, but as a man He knew sorrow and compassion, expressed with human tears. He made His home among us, the Word made intimate.

The Enemy presumed the Word was silenced when Jesus died on the cross of Calvary. But it was the ultimate shout of victory, because He rose again to offer forgiveness and new life to all who believed what He said. Now Jesus resides in hearts open to the truth of who He is, and embodies the definition of the Word love.

Madeleine L’Engle said, when the words mean even more than the writer knew they meant, then the writer has been listening. Listening to the Word is not just done with our ears, but with our heart, soul, spirit and mind. What a privilege it is as writers who believe in this Word, this ultimate expression of all God wants to say to us, to use our words to communicate Him to a broken world desperately needing to hear it spoken.


1 Keri Wyatt Kent, Deeper into the Word - New Testament (Bloomington, MN: Bethany House Pub., 2011) 224

(painting by my daughter, Kristina Jones)