'Blue's Clues' theology

The world is empty and void, and looking out over it are Steve Burns and his dog.

There is nothing there but the two of them, and Blue's "Big Bag of Words." As Blue brings out the words, they alter the world around them. Tracks appear with a tiny car on them, big enough to carry Steve and Blue. Obstacles appear, summoned by a word; then another word changes their size. Reality takes shape and changes form, all through the power of words.

This is an episode of Blue's Clues, a segment about words; yet as I watch it with my daughter, I find myself thinking about the divine Logos and its creative and transformation power in the cosmos.

John the Evangelist says of the Logos, "Through him, all things were made and without him nothing was made that was made." That's fundamental to theology: God created everything.

But then I started thinking about Logos as the expression of God's creative intent. It was when God spoke that light was pulled from darkness, and the sea and dry land were formed. Merely thinking of it didn't create it, but Logos did.

This also started me thinking and as I did, I watched one of my metaphysical constructs deflate and fall apart. I suspect like most Christians, I in my mind think of Jesus and the Father as separate beings even while I acknowledge they are one in a mysterious sense.

But Jesus is the expression of the Father's character and his will through words.

Can you separate yourself from your own speech? Not really. It's our speech that reveals who we are and how we order and shape the world around us. Our speech carries our cultural baggage, conveys our personality and our character, and reveals everything there is to know about us.

We shouldn't confuse a person with their language (although we often do by regarding people who speak differently from us as stupid), but in a very real sense the two are inseparable.

In that sense, then, it makes sense to Jesus qua Logos as the fullest expression of the Father's love, holiness and character, and as the Father-himself-but-not-quite.

It is through speaking Jesus that God creates, re-creates and restores the world to its fullest reflection of his character and identity.