Word to the Wise
Thursday, December 31, 2020 - Dec. 31 - 7th Day in the Octave of Christmas
[1 John 2:18-21 and John 1:1-18]And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father's only-begotten son, full of grace and truth......From his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace, because while the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only-begotten Son, God, who is at the Father's side, has revealed him. [John]
Among the more majestic passages in the Bible, the Prologue to the Gospel According to John stands out for its power and beauty. Since this gospel was the last to be put into writing (90-110 AD), it reflects a considerable development of understanding of the significance of Jesus above and beyond the simple facts of his birth, death and resurrection, important as those facts are. In the Prologue, Jesus is Christ from the very "beginning" - the word that "begins" the Book of Genesis! He is both the "word" (small w) and the Word (capital W) spoken by God.
If nothing else, we can learn from the Prologue how time and space conditioned we are. History is, for most of us, a linear thing - one thing after another. The Prologue professes that Jesus Christ is beyond history and yet became part of human history for our sake. Theologians call this "kenosis," a self-emptying. As St. Paul put it in his Letter to the Philippians, "He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness, and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." [Philippians 2:7-8]. The same Gospel According to John has Jesus saying at the Last Supper: "Greater love than this no one has, than that they lay down their life for a friend." [John 15:13]. The child in the manger is given to us in life, death and new, eternal, life. His birth as human was not the beginning of his eternal life, but he became fully human so that he could call us to a share in eternal life. The birth in Bethlehem, the ministry in the Holy Land, the crucifixion and resurrection are all moments in earthly history that speak of God's love and life-giving grace that have existed beyond all time. Jesus Christ is not just a figure from the past whom we will meet beyond the grave, He challenges us to proclaim his presence in our midst "from the beginning," now, and forever! AMEN