In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was at the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him, not one thing came into being.
Every translation is an interpretation. Every word carries a world. I love what it does to my relationship with Jesus. You see, in Spanish, John 1:1 has been translated In the beginning was the Verb, and the Verb was with God, and the Verb was God. I love how this word “Verbo” adds to the world behind “Word” and depicts Jesus with movement.
Every translation is an interpretation. Every word carries a world. I don’t understand the particulars of Bible translation scholars and the reasoning behind their choice of this one word. However, I love what it does to my relationship with Jesus. You see, in Spanish, John 1:1 has been translated in the RVR 1995: In the beginning, was the Verb, and the Verb was with God, and the Verb was God. I love how this word “Verbo” adds to the world behind “Word” and depicts Jesus with movement: the Word as a noun, as a spoken word, a lived word, and yet a living verb. I love that it allows me to see a Jesus that speaks, and moves, and breathes, and dances.
Seeing Jesus as a Verbo grants us a different angle to look at Jesus because one word can not capture the majesty of the One that was in the beginning, before all things, and above all things. The author of Hebrews echoes another beginning in Hebrews 1:1-3a: “In the past, God spoke through the prophets and our ancestral father in various forms and ways, and yet now God speaks through God’s own son. The son who is the exact representation of God’s very being who sustains all things, including your life, through his powerful word.”
The eternal word has living seeds that are verbs. It is through the living verbs of Jesus in any gospel that we see the God who moves near and draws close—in this time of Lent, a Jesus who has chosen to step into our suffering to identify with our humanity. He has been faithful from the beginning and there is no reason to believe God will stop being faithful now. The seeds of the gospel are in the verbs of the gospels. God sustains. God comforts. God heals. God cleanses. God rejoices over with singing. God provides. God cares. God forgives. God rescues. God delivers. God redeems. God reorients. God weeps. God holds. God upholds.
Take heart that the very God that was there in the beginning, through whom you came into being, is the very God that is sustaining your life by God’s powerful word. Find Jesus in those verbs.
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