The Word that leaped
The Wisdom of Solomon is a book you won’t find in most English-language Bibles. But you will find it if you have a Bible with the so-called Deuterocanonical Books. These books are included in the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles. There is a quite stunning passage in the Wisdom of Solomon, Chapter 18:14-15.
For while gentle silence enveloped all things,
and night in its swift course was now half gone,
your all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne,
into the midst of the land that was doomed,
Although this passage occurs in the context of God’s liberation of the Jews from Egypt, it takes on a deeper meaning when the Word of God indeed leaped from the royal throne and became incarnate in a baby, born to a poor young woman. And isn’t this an image that artists and painters and carol composers have painted for us? While gentle silence enveloped all things and night in its swift course was half gone….Beautiful imagery, captured in such carols as Silent Night. But the biblical text does not dwell on sentimental images like the carol and it follows with images of power – “your all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed.”
Egypt was the doomed land that chapter 18 of the Wisdom of Solomon referred to. But all lands were doomed, ARE doomed! Because we still prefer divisions. We still prefer to spend our money on weapons that can wipe out all life on the entire planet. But God’s power is greater than all the weapons of the world combined. The powerful Word of God became incarnate in a baby to show us the irony that a defenseless human being can represent the infinite power of God. Because God’s power is not a power that destroys. It is the power that heals. Yes, there is destruction in the Bible. But those are the metaphors of the Bible, not the reality. The reality is in that baby that we sentimentalize in our Christmas creches and Christmas pageants. And as I said before, there is nothing wrong in sentimentality and the child’s fantasy of Christmas. We all need sentiment and a little fantasy in our lives. But don’t allow the fantasy and the commercialism obscure the fact that something truly extraordinary, truly powerful happened in the silence of that sleepy town long ago, when the all-powerful Word leaped from heaven into our lives.