31 December 2021 - seventh day in the octave of Christmas - John 1:1-18

       Today, as we mark the last day of the year of 2021, we hear the very poetic and beautiful beginning of the Gospel of John. We heard this same Gospel reading on Christmas morning.  It is interesting to compare what we hear in the beginning of John’s Gospel to some of the other Gospels.  While Matthew begins with Jesus' genealogy & Luke starts with the story of the Elizabeth and Zechariah as parents of the man who would prepare the way for Jesus, the Gospel of John starts with the theological images of the Word of God, of a light shining in the darkness, of the Word of God being made flesh.  I think the only way to truly understand and appreciate the beginning of John's Gospel is to approach it as a beautiful work of poetry that eloquently expresses the truth about God and about the coming of Jesus into our world.

         But, in our modern, practical, common sense view of things, we may wonder why John the Evangelist would begin his Gospel with a poetic description of the Word of God.  The expression “Word of God” was a common expression among the Jews in ancient Israel.  In their Hebrew Scriptures, God's word was active, creative, and dynamic. John describes Jesus as God's creative, life-giving, and light-giving word that has come to earth in the flesh.  Jesus is the wisdom and power of God that created the world, the wisdom and the power that sustains it.  Jesus assumed a human nature in order to accomplish God's plan of salvation.  He is the Son of God who does not cease to be God, but becomes a human being and our brother. 

         If we are going to behold the glory of God, we will do it through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the word of God, the Logos that was with God in the beginning, the word that is God's total utterance. All that has been created, both the visible and the invisible, receives its being through him.  

        The eternal word came down from heaven in the silent watches of the night.  May we open our hearts to receive this word of God, to receive the light.  May we increase our vision and faith with the rising of the dawn, that our lives may be filled with God's glory and with God’s peace.