COP30 - 17 November 2025
Jesus is The Voice
COP30 - 17 November 2025
Jesus is The Voice
Embedded Files
Jesus is The Voice
Jesus is God spelling Himself out in language that [people] can understand.
(S.D. Gordon)
Reading
Reading
John 1: 1-14 (VOICE)
John 1: 1-14 (VOICE)
1 Before time itself was measured, the Voice was speaking.
The Voice was and is God.
2 This celestial Word remained ever present with the Creator;
3 His speech shaped the entire cosmos.
Immersed in the practice of creating,
all things that exist were birthed in Him.
4 His breath filled all things
with a living, breathing light—
5 A light that thrives in the depths of darkness,
blazes through murky bottoms.
It cannot and will not be quenched.
6 A man named John, who was sent by God, was the first to clearly articulate the source of this Light. 7 This baptizer put in plain words the elusive mystery of the Divine Light so all might believe through him. Some wondered whether he might be the Light, 8 but John was not the Light. He merely pointed to the Light. 9 The true Light, who shines upon the heart of everyone, was coming into the cosmos.
10 He entered our world, a world He made; yet the world did not recognize Him. 11 Even though He came to His own people, they refused to listen and receive Him. 12 But for all who did receive and trust in Him, He gave them the right to be reborn as children of God; 13 He bestowed this birthright not by human power or initiative but by God’s will.
14 The Voice took on flesh and became human and chose to live alongside us. We have seen Him, enveloped in undeniable splendor—the one true Son of the Father—evidenced in the perfect balance of grace and truth.
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Reflection
Reflection
We started last week at the birth of creation, and we return there now with the first fourteen verses of John's gospel, as he introduces Jesus to us with words that simultaneously illuminate and plunge us into mystery. Our minds flit between understanding and a sense of overwhelm. We suspect that this rendering of John's writing is unlike any that you've read in other Bible translations so we've copied the accompanying note from the VOICE here. It is well worth reading.
So what does John tell us about Jesus? We learn that this person, whom we first read of as a baby or an itinerant preacher in the other gospels, existed before even time existed. That he was somehow with God whilst also being God, that he was and is God’s voice and that his voice brought creation - all of creation - into being. We learn that he is life, and that his life is light, not a light, but the light, the light that no darkness can ever put out. Is your brain hurting yet? Ours are!
For centuries, our Bibles have translated the Greek word ‘logos’ as ‘word’, giving us, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” a sentence that many of us will know by heart. But ‘logos’ is actually much richer in meaning than many of us realise. Yes, it refers to words that are written down and to words that are spoken, but it also refers to the message they convey. It’s the act of speaking and the thing that is spoken. It can encompass thought and reasoning and motive. ’Logos’ conveys much more than just ‘word’.
On Day 1 of this series we reflected on God’s voice bringing creation into being, and on Day 2 we considered his voice being imbued with his glory, his magnificence and his power. Today we learn that somehow Jesus is that voice. It’s not just that Jesus spoke God’s words. Jesus is God’s words. Jesus is God’s voice.
Today’s reading presents many tangled threads of understanding for our mortal brains to consider. However, we would like to try and tease out a couple of these to finish with. First, creation came into being because of Jesus, which we think means that creation (all of it) is important to him. Second, Jesus is God’s voice, which we think means that he embodies everything that we read God saying in the Old Testament as well as everything he, himself, is recorded as saying in the New Testament. This means that Jesus is bigger than we often allow him to be. Yes, he came to earth to draw humankind back into a proper relationship with God, but perhaps he also wants to draw us back into a proper relationship with his creation?
Response
Response
Our Christian faith is steeped in mystery, none greater than the theology of the Holy Trinity (although you won’t actually find that phrase in the Bible). We felt challenged to look for worship songs that express something about the relationship between God our Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Here are a few. We invite you to create fifteen minutes of calm sometime today to listen to one or more of these, or others that you know.
This I Believe (The Creed) - Hillsong Worship
Triune God - Justin Tweito, Worship Together & The Worship Initiative
Trinity Song - Sandra McCracken - recorded by The Worship Initiative
Holy, Holy, Holy – Reginald Heber - recorded by Nathan Drake
Father we love you - Donna Adkins - recorded by Huddersfield Choral Society
Today at COP30
Today at COP30
Today is the first day of two considering the themes of forests, oceans, biodiversity, small and medium entrepreneurs, indigenous peoples, local and traditional communities, and children and youth . We consider forests and indigenous people today.
People living in indigenous territories represent only 6% of the world’s population, but they protect and manage hundreds of millions of hectares of land. Almost 40% of the planet's intact forests are located in Indigenous territories, where deforestation rates are consistently lower than elsewhere. The evidence is clear: where Indigenous territorial rights are respected, deforestation declines; where they are denied, destruction advances.
Indigenous peoples are not just environmental defenders. They are guardians of ancient cultures, bearers of knowledge, ways of life and values that ensure the continuity of forests, rivers and biodiversity.
COP30 is being held in Amazonia, and the thought is that this will encourage participation by exactly these kinds of people, and an opportunity for the other delegates to hear their insights clearly (edited from a letter by Sonia Guajajara, Minister of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil).
COP30 Website
UN Climate Change COP30 Website
Prayer
Prayer
Heavenly Father I pray for solutions and resources to be on hand and available to people who need them most, to enable them to adapt to and recover from these weather events. I pray for wider sharing of climate-resilient farming solutions, and for more new discoveries and research in this area to bring about good results for the people who grow the food we depend on daily.
From tearfund
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Lorna has changed her web browser and search engine
Ecosia is a not for profit company with 80% of their profits going towards planting and protecting trees while the remaining 20% is invested in other grassroots and community-driven “green” activism.
Ecosia uses renewable energy to power their servers and invests profits in tree-planting projects aiming to absorb more CO2 than it emits. They say they aim to produce 25Wh of renewable energy for each day that a user browses with the browser.
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