Christmas Day: You are the Voice

John Farnham and You are the Voice

I recall during the 1980s conversation about the potential for war, and perhaps nuclear

It was the time John Farnham produced his very popular Song, ‘You are the Voice.”

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We're all someone's daughter We're all someone's son How long can we look at each other Down the barrel of a gun?

You're the voice, try and understand it Make a noise and make it clear We're not gonna sit in silence We're not gonna live with fear

This time, we know we all can stand together With the power to be powerful Believing we can make it better You're the voice, try and understand it Make a noise and make it clear

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There are some great versions on utube including a version with Canadian Celine Dion.

How easy to get into the swing of the large audience singing together. I am the voice.

Science

Science has peered back through the 14 billion years of the evolutionary story to identify the orderly reality of creation. In time it notes this orderliness produces knowledge that shapes all creation.

From a more spiritual perspective, Frank Bedogne outlines a similar story but describes evolution beginning with consciousness, the source of creation, and its knowledgeable foundation. It follows the story through the ever-evolving consciousness of creation that we may become people shaped by minds full of knowledge and understanding.

Creation has an innate knowledge imbued within.

The Gospel of John the Evangelist

One of the truly great readings of Christmas comes from the gospel of John the evangelist in Chapter one. The prologue.

Like Bedogne, he sees the source of all creation as the Logos, which we translate from Greek into English as Word.

In the beginning, was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God, all things were made through him, and without him, nothing that was made was made

For John, the world is shaped as it is because it is the expression of an ever-creating mind, the mind of God or Word.

This concurs with Bedogne’s explanation highlighting consciousness as the foundation of that knowledge.

This innate knowledge is the voice of all creation, and scriptures often reveal it in the voice of an angel.

Angel means messenger, the one who articulates the mind of God.

The angel spoke to Mary, ‘you will give birth to a child whose name is Emmanuel, meaning God with us.

The Lord reveals his mind in the voice of an angel.

There are countless examples scattered through scripture.

John the Baptist

The most famous use of this understanding is John the Baptist. I am a voice crying in the wilderness.

John’s gospel continues when speaking of Jesus as the light.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

He came as a witness to testify concerning that light

John Chapter 1 Verse 14

The crowning statement is in verse 14. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son of the father.

The fullness of that creative knowledge, the ground of all creation, manifested itself in the life of Jesus.

Witness

Jesus witnessed to the divine.

John the Baptist witnessed to Jesus

Like John, we are to bear witness to the word in Jesus.

The Word

The Word is the constant. The creator, the intelligence that shapes creation, that provides meaning.

A witness must live in harmony with that Word.

Jesus was the perfector of a life in harmony with the Word for he was the Word.

We witness by living in harmony with the Word.

Jesus Voice

Jesus never hesitated to express his mind to the people of his day.

To the lazy, or drifters, he said, wake up, stay alert.

To authorities, he criticised them for hypocrisy or self-serving power.

He lived his voice.

Finding One’s Voice

Have you found your voice?

This is the call of the fulfilled life, of being a witness to the word.

In our day, a common saying is … ‘speak the truth to power.’ It takes courage and conviction.

The whistleblower chooses this difficult path.

We have become used to young women finding their voice and speaking their truth to the powerful, on matters of sexuality and office power.

Grace Tame, and Greta Thunberg, are now household names.

Liz Cheney and Volodymyr Velenskyy are politicians who have stood tall as they speak their truth to power. Cassidy Hutchinson and Bridget Archer are members of political parties who stood tall against the tide of popular opinion in their work. They are inspirational and wonderful models, but not all people speaking their truth to power must stand on the international stage. Life has a place for each of us in our daily life to speak our truth, even in the face of opposition, because life is grounded in every aspect of creation by Word. We witness to this Word by living its truth manifest in each of us.

Conclusion

In the 1980s Johnnie Farnham reminded us, ‘we are the voice.’

John the Evangelist reminds us all creation is the Word

To walk with the Word asks us to find our voice.

The Christmas carol tells us that the little drummer boy found his.