Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
The Word became flesh and lived among us.
When I speak, when you speak. Our words tell us something about ourselves. What we think, what we know, what we want to do or how I feel about something. But in a very limited way because, as a human being I can only express a little bit of myself in my words.
Now, think about God. Who is the perfect reality, the source of all creation. God can speak perfectly about himself, utterly. God can speak a word that totally carries the truth of who he is.
In the creed we pray: God from God, light from light, true God from true God (this is our baby Jesus that we celebrate in this Christmas season) and today in gospel Saint John says: “The word was God” the logos, this is Jesus. The son is not just an aspect of the father, not just a little bit of the father's truth. He's the fullness of the father's truth
Today, First Sunday of Christmas, our liturgy calls to reflect this prologue to the gospel of John that is one of the great theological masterpieces in our tradition that does sum up whole Christianity and certainly what this Christmas is about.
Let’s walk through some verses and bring to our heart God’s word.
John begins: “in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God”. It's how the whole Bible commences. Genesis 1 says: In the beginning, when God made the heavens and the earth. The Intention of John here is to tell a story of new creation. God is starting over with something fresh and new. He is completing his creation. This is something unique and specific to Christianity.
V2 “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”
The Father, God, as great artist was looking at his son and discerning in the son, the logos, all of the possible patterns of rationality and order and made the world according to the Son , logos. the son, logos, all things are made.
Now John the Baptist enters the stage. Was sent from God as witness to testify the light.
In the past, God has sent spokespersons, prophets, and patriarchs who speak his word. We can also think of every great philosopher, every great scientist, every great poet, every great artist. Anyone that speaks what is love, true, faith, beauty, indeed speaks the word of God to some degree. They're human bearers of his word.
The Evangelist John is telling us: This Jesus who was born on Christmas night that I'm talking about, this logos, is not like John the Baptist, not like one of the prophets, not just another philosopher, teacher. He is something qualitatively different, not just a bearer of the word. And I think that's a message which needs to be heard today.
V10. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.
The church fathers said, "God became human, that humans might become God."
That's how they summed up Christian faith. God condescended to take our nature to himself that that nature might be elevated and raised up.
Fulton Sheen, was an American bishop, talks about the hierarchy of being. He says: Something lower on the scale can be brought up higher but only through an act of condescension on the part of that which is above it. This natural law of the "descent of the higher to lift the lower" serves as an analogy for the Incarnation of Christ.
How do human beings become something higher?
In that silent night (that we sing every year) Christ came and is not just one human being among many. He is God from God, light from light, true God from true God and now he can raise us up and share his own life. By condescending to us, he allows us to ascend into him.
Everything, especially the human beings, we are made through and for the logos (Jesus) in a very special way. We're meant for union with God. This is our own deepest identity. Union with God It's the deepest hunger of every human heart.
The centerpiece, it's verse 14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us.
And that little detail now. In the English translation, sometimes we miss the very important meaning of the word that we have in the original text, in this case in Greek. for example: the word became flesh and lived among us. In Greek literally says: He tabernacled among us; He made his tent among us.
For biblical Jew though, when you say tent or tabernacle, they are thinking about the Book of Exodus when Israel is escaping from Egypt and God tells them to build a great tabernacle, a tent of meeting, a tent where he would commune with them. That's the prototype of the temple in Jerusalem many centuries later. The temple was the meeting place of heaven and earth. When earth and heaven meet, God comes down to meet his creation.
Now, because of the holy night, because of Christmas, because of the incarnation, we have the full tabernacling of God among his people. The true temple now is Christ, the word made flesh. We now have a new and definitive place to go to meet God. Heaven and earth coming together in Christ.
As the versus 14 says: “and we have seen his glory, the glory of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” That little juxtaposition is fascinating. Grace and truth.
The incarnation It's the full expression of grace, Free gift. We can't deserve this. We can't merit it. God freely gives of himself becoming one of us grace upon grace. It's full of truth because Jesus is the incarnation of God that came among us. because the grace of God's come among us we see what we ought to be.
The demand of Christianity is higher than any religion or philosophy because God's become one of us full of grace. and therefore, we are called to this fullness of truth to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.
That's the good news of Christmas. That's the meaning of Christmas. It's about God in grace condescending to come down to us that we might become participants in his own nature and that we might realize the fullness of the truth that he is, the truth of what we can become.
That's what Christmas is about.
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