It’s Love All the Way Down
Feast of Creation in Christ
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago
(Genesis 2:4-25, Psalm 148:1-14, Acts 17:22a, 24-28, John 1:1-5)
In her autobiography, the twentieth century English mystic, Caryll Houselander described how an ordinary underground train journey in London transformed into a vision that changed her life.
“I was in an underground train, a crowded train in which all sorts of people jostled together, sitting and strap-hanging—workers of every description going home at the end of the day. Quite suddenly I saw with my mind, but as vividly as a wonderful picture, Christ in them all. But I saw more than that; not only was Christ in every one of them, living in them, dying in them, rejoicing in them, sorrowing in them—but because He was in them, and because they were here, the whole world was here too, here in this underground train; not only the world as it was at that moment, not only all the people in all the countries of the world, but all those people who had lived in the past, and all those yet to come. I came out into the street and walked for a long time in the crowds. It was the same here, on every side, in every passer-by, everywhere—Christ…Christ is everywhere; in Him every kind of life has a meaning and has an influence on every other kind of life.” (Caryll Houselander, A Rocking Horse Catholic, New York: Sheed & Ward, 1955, chapter 13)
The truth of this has stared us in the face for two thousand years. John writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him and without him not one thing came into being…The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it” (John 1:1-3, 5). Yet are we surprised by Householder’s vision?
John’s gospel intentionally echoes the words of Genesis. These are words for a people who don’t need convincing that the world is dark but desperately needs to hear that the light is still shining. John wants us to hear that incarnation is not as an isolated event, but is God’s long, patient work (which we now know has been unfolding for 13.8 billion years), finally coming into focus. John’s creation story is not about God arriving unexpectedly, but about God being faithful. “Faithful to creation, faithful to promises, faithful even when the world does not recognize what is standing right in front of it.” (Micah Krey, “John 14:1-14,” Writings on Recovery and Preaching, 12/25/25)
The Word does not shout from heaven or fix things from afar. The Word moves in. Takes up residence. Makes a dwelling in the middle of human life as it actually is: tired, complicated, unfinished. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us” (v. 14). John is careful not to romanticize what happens next. “He was in the world… yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him” (vv. 10 & 11). (Krey)
Christ’s presence in with and under all things does not erase resistance. “It does not guarantee recognition. Light shows up, and some still turn away.” (Krey) No one here needs a gospel that pretends everything is suddenly okay. Instead, what John offers instead is assurance. The light shines, and the darkness does not get the final word. The light John describes is not aggressive. It does not force itself into every shadowed corner. It shines steadily, faithfully, persistently, creatively calling brokenness into healing. Darkness is still named as darkness. Christ is present in us and in the cosmos. God must reveal God’s self in you before God can fully reveal God’s self to you. John offers this quiet, tender promise: “To all who received him… he gave power to become children of God” (v. 12). “Not conquerors. Not heroes. Not those who understood everything. Not those who had it all together. But those who are simply received. Children. Dependent, beloved, held.” (Krey)
“We live in a time that many have described as a “meaning crisis” or even a “metacrisis.” Young people especially report feelings of hopelessness, disconnection, and disillusionment, at a time when many of the social, political, religious, and ecological systems they have inherited seem increasingly unable to meet the challenges before us.” John’s vision, to which Caryll Householder testified in her autobiography, is a way to put the world together again.
We have inherited a worldview that often fragments what belongs together and encourages us to imagine ourselves as isolated individuals in a mechanistic universe rather than participants in a deeply relational world. We have been richly blessed materially by our Western inheritance, but it has made us spiritually sick. What happens to our sense of meaning, belonging, purpose, and possibility when we begin with a different understanding of who we are and what kind of universe we inhabit? Not to abandon what we have learned, but to reclaim the wisdom we have forgotten? (Sheri D. King, Process and Faith newsletter, 9/11/26).
On this 25th anniversary of 9/11, we have begun to realize the war on terror is still threatening our democracy, not from the outside, but from within. It has made us fearful rather than trusting, defensive rather than curious, at war rather than at peace. When I think about the America of my youth compared to the one my children grew up in post 9/11, the contrast is shocking. Security cameras, metal detectors, barricades, and active shooter drills—have these things made our life better?
Former evangelical preacher turned activist and author, Brian McLaren, describes his surprise, when he discovered that … “in the Bible I had been reading my whole life, and especially in the life and teachings of Jesus, Mary, Paul, James, and John, the fresh understanding of faith my heart was thirsty for had been waiting like a hidden spring all along.” He continues, “In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus doesn’t teach a list of beliefs to be memorized and recited. Instead, he teaches a way of life that culminates in a call to revolutionary love. This revolutionary love goes far beyond conventional love, the love that distinguishes between us and them, brother and other, or friend and enemy (Matthew 5:43). Instead, we need to love as God loves, with non-discriminatory love that includes even the enemy.”
Are we startled to discover that faith in Christ who dwells in us makes room for Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus—people of faith and of no faith? In the light of this new/ancient vision, a person of faith, in contrast to a person of beliefs, shares something in common—a universal, non-discriminatory love that calls us all together. “In this light, the word “doubt” can mean two very different things. When it is applied to faith that expresses itself in beliefs, it means one thing. When it is applied to faith that expresses itself in revolutionary love, it means something very different” (Brian McLaren, “A Person of Faith and Love,” Daily Meditations, 9/11/26).
On this Creation in Christ Sunday, Jesus suggests we belong to a ‘kingdom not of this world.’ Yet, this kingdom is not relegated to the distant future, nor beyond history, nor only in heaven. Heaven and earth are connected (John 18:36). Christ, the logos, is hidden and revealed in the very character of creation itself. It’s Love all the way down, beyond the stars, beneath the sea, within each cell; with every breath. Love is the lure operating within all things coaxing them toward harmony, diversity, and beauty.
In Another Turn of the Crank, our late Kentucky sage, Wendell Berry, wrote, “I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.” (Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays)
