Today, we mark the last day of the year of 2025. We hear the poetic beginning of John’s Gospel today, the same Gospel that we heard on Christmas morning. We can compare what we hear in the beginning of John to some of the other Gospels. While Matthew begins with Jesus' genealogy and 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. John’s Gospel very eloquently expresses the truth about God and about the coming of Jesus into our world.
In our modern, practical 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 commonly used among the Jews in ancient Israel. In the 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 human flesh. Jesus is the wisdom and power of God that created the world and that sustains it. Jesus assumed 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. As we mark the end of 2025, may we open our hearts to receive the word of God and to receive God’s light.
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