I have often seen this section of John 1 described as the "prologue" of this Gospel. I think it is because the divinity of Jesus, and the Incarnation--Jesus Christ becoming man--is so vital that we need to recognize it as a special thing. I agree with this decision, and I see no reason to go against what all other commentators seem to do. I will, however, extend my marking of the prologue through verse 18. The discussion of John the Baptist begins right after that, and so thematically it is slightly different.
Please notice that this Gospel begins with, "In the beginning…" Genesis 1:1 at the very beginning of the Bible, begins with the same phrase. John wants us to know that Jesus was there at the creation of the universe. As we read along further, he also wants us to know that Jesus is going to re-create the world and us, if we will allow Him to do it.
This is an interesting word choice, "Word." Suffice it to say that John's Greek speaking audience understood this word to mean something like the totality of reason or rationality. Or, if we can set in a joking way from another human book, "the answer to life, the universe, and everything." In other words, John is saying something very bold about Jesus: he is God. Not only was Jesus present at creation, but St. John says he did the creating. We should not understand this in a way as to take away any power or glory from God the Father, or from the Holy Spirit, but the divinity of Jesus is absolutely crucial to understand what John believes, and what he wants us to believe, as his readers.
We can go back to Genesis 1 in fact, to see that "life" is a very important idea for Moses there. Genesis says that God breathed life into Adam's nostrils, and he became a living being.
We also notice the theme of light and darkness. Jesus is the light shining in the darkness, and we are invited to think about what we're going to do about that. Are we going to run away from the light, or to live in the light?
St. John knows that most people know where babies come from; we know that we had a mother and a father, and thus were born into the world. But here at the end of this section, we are invited to be born again, to be born of God. The very first step in being a child of God--besides knowing that we need God--is to believe the testimony about Jesus. That's why John is giving this testimony. He's also telling us about Jesus's relative, John the Baptist. John the Baptist is also very important, but as we keep reading, it becomes important for him that people understand that he isn't the Christ, either. It seems the people of this time weren't too much different than us: trying to make heroes and gods out of the wrong people.
St. John, who wrote this Gospel for us, was the last person to write a Gospel. A Gospel is a direct testimony concerning the life of Jesus. These four Gospels--Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--are eyewitness accounts to the life of Jesus. The word "gospel" means "good news," and writers of this time would sometimes use this word to describe a messenger bringing news of a great victory by a conquering king or warrior. Therefore, the new Christians and the new Church knew exactly what they were doing, when they chose this word to describe the eyewitness accounts about Jesus.
There is a great mystery, when it says, "He came to his own home, and his own people received him not." We need to be careful here, because anti-Jewish attitudes have always been present in the world, and even some Christians have had a role in promoting that, leading to bigotry and genocide. Even the word which gets translated, "Jews" in this Gospel, and in some places elsewhere in the Bible, can seem like a slur.
However, we need to remember that for our purposes, nearly everyone--Jesus's friends, and his enemies--were Jewish. Later on in the Bible, the apostle Paul spends several chapters in the book of Romans trying to explain the mystery of who receives Jesus and who does not. There is no sense in trying to congratulate ourselves, if we hear and receive the saving message of Jesus, because God has given us the grace to receive it. Elsewhere Paul says, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and it is not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, so that no one may boast."
Humility is clearly called for on our part, when thinking about coming to faith in Jesus, and in the struggles of perhaps sharing our faith with others. God alone is Judge, and we should tremble at the thought, though not in terror.
The other very interesting point concerning this passage has to do with verse 14. When it says that Jesus "dwelt among us," some translations say "tabernacled". The Tabernacle was a temporary place of God's presence, and of worship, until the Temple could be built. When the people disobeyed God, and took the Ark of the Covenant into battle without God's permission, their enemies stole it. As the people were trying to describe the sadness of that event, they said, "the glory he has departed." When John says, "and we have seen his glory…" John is saying that the glory has returned in Jesus! One final question and thought about this section is, "Is John trashing Moses, or the covenant that God made with Moses?" No! What he is trying to say is that as much glory as Moses had, and that he saw, the glory of Jesus is that much greater. Jesus came down as God in the flesh, and literally pitched his tent with us! When we read in another Gospel, "and you shall call his name "Immanuel," which means "God with us," that's as real as it gets. We can't really say that God doesn't understand what we have gone through, because He came down here, and experienced everything we have, all except sin. Jesus's given name in Hebrew is Joshua, which means, "the Lord saves". John is trying to make it as easy for us as he can, although for us, the old Hebrew Scriptures are not necessarily second nature to us, as they would have been for John's audience. [Note that this is a draft of something that could be a physically published work at a later time.]
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