John 1:1-18
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14 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.
15 (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
"In the beginning.... the Word was God!"
Which beginning are we referring to?
Beyond space and time, before time and place, we explain what we can but our human understanding can not explore and probe the unreachable. We need to use our human language to speak about and try to understand the unreachable.
How did our first brothers who wrote the synoptic Gospels start their inspired narrations of the New Testament?
Matthew starts with Jesus’s genealogy coming down from Abraham to Jesus to prove that Jesus is the promised Messiah and born from King David's lineage.
Mark starts with Jesus’s forerunner in the desert, John the Baptist, preparing for the arrival of the Kingdom in the person of Jesus.
Luke starts with the Annunciations to Zachariah and to Mary, including John the Baptist as the new Elijah and Jesus’s childhood. Luke follows that with Jesus’s genealogy, but in reverse order going back from Jesus to Abraham, and even further to Adam and to God, to include all humankind.
These three synoptics tell us about the human Jesus and his human lineage. They focus on the historical Jesus, Son of God; the Redeemer and the Savior.
John invites us to go beyond Jesus’s human genealogy. John’s insight is more about the divine nature of the incarnated God becoming flesh.
John starts his gospel with a theological insight proclaiming Jesus's divine nature, and his human one too, by the well-known verse, “The Word became flesh and lived among us." John 1:14. John continues telling us that, "The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." John 1:17.
The Law was established to judge, reward or punish as a result of facts and deeds. Grace considers facts and deeds, discerns their truth, and acts with mercy and forgiveness. This is God's aim and Jesus’s teaching, "If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world!" John 12:47
Jesus's birth reveals who God is in John 1:18, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.”
The Incarnated Son who is "God from God and Light from Light” is the Only One who is substantial (or of the same, one nature) to the Father, can tell who God is and what nature He has.
The early Church celebrated the Nativity and the Epiphany on the same date, the sixth of January. The nativity of Christ as the one “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness." Philippians 2:6-7.
The Epiphany was celebrated the same day, indicating the manifestation of the Holy Trinity at Jesus’s baptism. This was combined with all nations, represented by the magi, coming to recognize Christ the King, worshiping him and offering their symbolic presents. Matthew 2:1-12, “…Magi from the east came to Jerusalem….”
How do we celebrate our Christmas today? Happy are the families who still combine the spiritual depth of Jesus’s Incarnation and the modern celebration without allowing the latter to eclipse the former!
God's love is proposed to those who would like to welcome the Word becoming flesh. Those who open their hearts to live according to Jesus’s model may feel God's love in their hearts or, even better, feel that they are living in God's heart.
Blessed Christmas 2021 and a better New Year 2022!