“THE WORD OF LIGHT AND LIFE”
Saint John 1: 1-14
The Feast of The Nativity of our Lord: 25 December Anno Domini 2019
Father Jay Watson SSP
Christmas Day morning sermons need not be creative, innovative, or special—as compared to any other Lord’s Day homily. The same is true of Christmas Eve sermons. Christ here for you! Christ here now! Your sins and sorrow, your anger and loss, all your loneliness and dislocation are over and done; paid for; washed clean. You are whole. You are healthy in Faith by The Grace of The Word!
“In the beginning was the Word” writes Saint John the Divine, The Theologian. He wrote it in Greek: “en arche en ha Logos.” Was the word, not The Word came about, not The Word came into being. No. WAS. YHWH—I AM; I AM that I AM—Being; Alpha and Omega; infinitely Eternal and pre-existent. That is your God. That is The Word, the 2nd Person in The Trinitarian Godhead, that was there before Genesis 1.1. That is The Word, The LOGOS that Saint John is Gospelling. John uses the Greek word LOGOS to “tap in” to the metaphysical and philosophical worldview of his day, to show even the Greeks, Pagans, and Jews, that their own vocabulary beautifully expresses the role that The Son plays in all reality and all creation. The Son is The Mind, The Expression, The outward Actor of all inter-Trinitarian communion and being. The Son is The Ambassador, The Spokesman, indeed the Very Word of His Father.
That is Who lays in the manger in Bethlehem. That is Who suckles at The Virgin’s breasts! He Who drinks milk is The Word that created all that produces milk.
En Arche; In the beginning. Saint John picks up that language from Genesis 1 to start his Gospel’s prologue. The tiny baby born in Ephratah [Micah 5.2] as prophesied by Saint Micah was with The Father and The Holy Spirit before time and matter and space, and anything “create.”
Everything was made by The Logos. Adam and Eve were made by The Logos, in His own Image and Likeness. He incarnated them before He Himself would be enfleshed. The Christ-Mass is so incredibly joyous, awe-filled, and mind-shattering, that all His people can only shout: Gloria in excelsis, Glory be to God on high, Hallelujah! Praise The Lord! Emmanuel! God with you!
Saint Luke’s beautiful Nativity narrative, bolstered by Saint Matthew’s additions gives all the children of God the “events” that indeed make them/you all children of The Father. These Evangels give you your Lord and Savior Who takes your own fallen and sinful flesh and Redeems it by uniting it to His Divinity. The One Jesus is the God/Man. As the second and perfect Adam He begins to keep God’s Law perfect and inviolate from that “singular” and “punctiliar” moment on March 25th when He was Incarnate of Virgin Mary by the power of The Holy Ghost. That is The Incarnation, that is when God became man. But on December 25th, that miracle of miracles, indeed the greatest and most incredible gift of Grace became manifest. Emmanuel—God’s visitation of His children.
The Word, The Logos, Who made everything at the beginning, had come to re-make all that man had broken and destroyed. In this fullness of time, in the reign of Caesar Augustus, The God of all creation Who fills the universe which HE made, out of nothing, deigns to descend first into a virgin womb, and then into a manger filled with straw; a wooden manger—a harbinger of another carrier and holder, also made of wood, that would take this Bread from Heaven and raise it on high.
No doubt John was intimately familiar with not just Jerusalem, and Bethany, but also Bethlehem.
He knew what he was really saying when he wrote the truth: “In Him was Life; and The Life was The Light of men.” John’s famous sixth chapter wherein the Babe of Bethlehem, then grown, holds forth in the Sacramental discourse on The Bread of Life shows clearly: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him” [Jn 6. 52-56]. There you have The Christmas Gospel!
The Savior, Incarnatus, grew up and matured in the land of Zebulon and Naphtali—Galilee of the Gentiles [Mt. 4.15]. “The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up” [v.16] He brings Light and Life to all who belong to Him. He gives them Himself by His Word—Logoi from The Logos and most importantly by His Body and Blood. Incarnation—Nativity—The Cross of Good Friday—Resurrection—Ascension to fill all things—Take Eat, Take Drink—given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Yes. But also, Light to your darkness, Life to your illness and dying self, and Peace that really does pass all understanding.
So here you are once again. You have been gathered not by elves, reindeer, snowmen, or sugar-plum fairies. You have been called by The Gospel—The Good News, which John the Baptist announced and which the Church has continued to announce ever since. Jesus is The Light. The Word is The Light. You bear that light and thus are all now witness to The Word; The Light; but more so You receive Him with gladsome hearts. For the Spirit has caused you to + receive Him, and “as many as received Him, to them, gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His + Name.” That’s you. That’s your Holy Baptism: “…born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” You are sons of God. With The Christ you pray “our Father.” Do you realize that power you have, that Christmass power?
That’s all one needs to hear on Christmas day! “And The Word, ha Logos, was made Flesh.” Take eat for the forgiveness of your sins. “And dwelt among us.” Take drink. And you this gladsome day “behold His Glory, The Glory of The Only Begotten of The Father, full of Grace and Truth.”
The Word of The Lord.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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