A few days ago, Ramadan ended.  Its final night (Eid al-Fitr) remembers the night that, centuries ago, the prophet Mohammad is said to have received the first of the divine revelations which would eventually become the Qur'an.  It is a night in which God (Allah) visited and manifested himself to his human creation in a way, as Muslims see it, he had not done so before.  It is a night of divine unfolding, a night in which the distant and unknowable God expressed himself in ways his human creation could understand.

     Ramadan reminds us that whether we believe it or not, God speaks.  God speaks through nature, God speaks through image, and God speaks through word.  Life is the speech of God.

     How much more remarkable do I therefore find the apostle John's understanding of Word, which he articulated several centuries before Mohammad walked upon the earth.  Not only does God communicate himself through the written word (which Jew, Muslim, and Christian alike confirm), but he communicates himself by showing us, directly and visibly in the person of Jesus, who he most deeply is.
     John showed us that although as Ramadan affirms, we do well to treasure the words of God, we come to know God most fully when we see him face to face.
     And everyone can know him.