In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit
It s the first Sunday in Christmastide and, as with all Sundays of the Church year, it
is designated as a feast of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But if December 27 had fallen on a weekday, the Church calendar would have observed today
as the Feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist.
As it is, that observance has been transferred to Tuesday, December 29, the first open weekday.
Perhaps with no little irony, poor Thomas Beckett gets bumped off again this year.
His feast day is normally December 29.
The Fourth Gospel, the Gospel called John is traditionally held to have been written
by the saint we honor today.
We are referring to the Apostle John.
We can t be sure he was the actual author, but it is likely that it came from a community
that gathered around him and built itself around his apostolic witness in the period
after the first Easter.
The Gospel reading appointed for this Sunday is the majestic Prologue from John s Gospel
It s almost the same reading that is appointed on Christmas Day.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
It s our custom in Anglicanism to read John s Prologue on the first Sunday after Christmas
each year.
The solemn introduction in the traditional service of Lessons and Carols sums it up pretty
well.
In this Prologue, St. John unfolds the great mystery of the Incarnation.
Preeminent scholar of John s Gospel, Raymond Brown wrote, If John has been described as
the pearl of great price among the New Testament writings, then one may say that the Prologue
is the pearl within this Gospel Both St. Augustine in the 4th century, and St. John Chrystostom
held that it was beyond the power of human beings to speak as John did in the Prologue.
It is clearly an inspired work a revelation Brown observes, the choice of the eagle as
the symbol of John the Evangelist was largely determined by the celestial flights of the
opening lines of the Gospel.
In this Prologue, John captures the essential attributes and actions of God Creator, Redeemer,
Sanctifier and ties all of these into the Incarnation .God s coming into the world in
flesh, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
In his opening verses, John echoes the opening words of Genesis In the beginning None of
John s original hearers would have missed that illusion . In the beginning when God
created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the
face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
Then God said, Let there be light ; and there was light.
In John s Prologue, this same Creator God sees chaos and darkness once more in the world,
and determines to engage in a new act of re-creation In the form of utterance, divine speech, LOGOS,
the Word, God will send light again into the world .the light of life .This word of God
will become enfleshed incarnate and come and dwell, : pitch his tent, with humankind in
our very midst .and call us into himself into the fullness of his light and love.
Does that sound impossible to you?
Is the creator of this vast cosmos not capable of becoming a human being?
And why not?
Why not this human being, Jesus of Nazareth?
.Why cannot the God who is love, who is light and life, become love, become life and light
incarnate?
It is our belief, our conviction, that this is precisely what God did.
As C.S. Lewis observed in his classic book, The Grand Miracle The Christian story is precisely
the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space
and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into nature, into human nature, descended
into his own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with him.
In his Hymns on the Nativity, Ephrem the Syrian, a 4th century theologian figure, wrote, Today
the Deity imprinted itself on humanity so that humanity might also be cut into the seal
of Deity.
The packages and presents so many received on Christmas morning are a sacrament, an outward
and visible expression of an inward invisible grace They are outward expressions of the
love and affection others have for us.
They are also a sign and symbol of the gift that was given for us by grace .the gift of
the infant child, the Word become flesh .It is important that we make this connection.
The Word became flesh for our sakes the light and the love shone in the darkness for us
and for our world, here, now today .As John writes so poetically, so majestically, What
has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people all people.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it The true light,
which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world and did come into the world
There were those who saw the present, but missed the gift . John makes this clear He
was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know
him.
He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him .. There are those who
see it now and miss the gift
But others .others saw, believed and received Listen to John But to all who received him,
who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not
of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory
as of a father s only son, full of grace and truth.
From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace .
There it is the sacrament and the gift, the true gift and meaning of Christmas .A gift
that came in outward form, a lasting gift, a gift that is received inwardly, in our hearts
and minds A gift that has power and grace to transform our lives, and through us, to
transform the world with the light of Christ Let that light shine at all times and in all
places, and especially in the darkness of our world, so that others may see it, may
see it and give glory to God, the giver of the light, the giver life, the giver of the
most wondrous gift of all, Jesus Christ, the Word become flesh, the light of the world.
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