Dec. 25 Christmas Mass Late Morning/Early Afternoon Word & Homily
Gospel John 1:1-5, 9-14
In the beginning* was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.a 2He was in the beginning with God. 3* All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.b What came to be 4 through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race;c 5* the light shines in the darkness,d and the darkness has not overcome it.
9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.h 10 (Now) He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, but (many of) his own people* did not accept him. 12i But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, 13* j who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh* and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.
Homily [Extended for the Web readers]
We hear proclaimed today that the Word of God was at in the beginning of all things, and even beyond that beginning—we hear the world was made by the Pre-existent One named “The Word.” How so? The Gospel proclaims that “He spoke and it came into being.” What did?! Life and creation as we know it, including our humanity. Poof! Existence! By a command, all came to be. By Him. The Word had power. He is the source of Life! He is the same Word that became a person, which explains our feast of Christmas. The Child Jesus is Someone’s Birth to fuss over!
We hear today that “The Word” is the Person of Jesus Christ—Who did something quite amazing for all of humanity. He joined the human race, not just in divinity, but also into our humanity. It is the wonder news of history. Christmas. In His life among us (The Word among us) something quite startling happened—Creation got a re-start in Him. Not back to the Stone Age but of the heart, He the Word proposed to dwell within our souls, if we’d receive Him. If we would, then He Himself would bring His re-creating and saving life into our souls. He proposed to dwell there, if we would “receive Him.” God decided He would show up to do this restart in the world, and so to introduce Himself into the world and to His nation of covenant promise, He arrived as a baby Christ. The Word became flesh, indeed as an infant! God willed and spoke for Himself to enter Creation this way. And it happened.
In the modern world, some devices can start up by a word being spoken (or of a signal coming from somewhere) to say “start.” New cars do this. Ovens. Anything connected to a computer. We say: “Turn on.” And so it does. It recognizes the voice or signal. A command, is what we call it. What if our word or command could itself become alive as our person? That the sound waves would form into a human being, body and soul? Huh?! John’s Gospel tells us how this is a bit of what Word became flesh is about—though the analogy falls short. God Who is Spirit and Who spoke a world into existence, even of humankind into being, spoke Himself “The Word” into flesh. Enfleshment, without losing divinity, but in some sense, having his divinity mostly veiled, and given a downsize for us to fathom.
We know now this One (or Word) we are talking about is the Blessed Son of the Most Holy Trinity of Who is being described in this Christmas Gospel. He came to His own….to Israel.
I saw some hologram technology some years ago, and if you stood in front of a camera, that it could then make a hologram to appear as you. You would say some command like “Copy me.” Next thing you know, there is an appearance of you as a hologram. But if you were to reach out and touch yourself, you’d feel nothing, because it is some floating photograph in the air of you. Yet not really you. It remained a bit fascinating to me, as is many of the tech novelties and inventions of our time, like a virtual policeman I saw last year, but it is not nearly anything at all compared to what God can do. We may have images that even appear to serve us, like of a virtual assistant ‘appearing’ or speaking on line or on the phone. Next you know–we are speaking with computers and not people and things are getting done. While all of that seems to be heading in the inhuman or impersonal AI direction, God has something else going on. He speaks His word of life into us to live with us, in communion, as He joins us as Emmanuel. Individually or corporately. He can accomplish it. Even human soul has a capacity to receive the Spirit of Christ. Not just a vague spiritual connection, but the very Word of God in the person of Jesus. Go figure. That’s the challenge. Can you believe Jesus is real?
He is a real person in history, most factually real that most any other one who ever existed. The claims of the Church, backed by evidence of its early apostolic times, is that He purposely allowed events to have Him die on a Cross, but then He rose from the dead to reveal Himself as the Pasch Mystery or The Dying-to-Rising Savior of Humanity. The God with us Person, called Emmanuel, He is The One the Scriptures, like John 1 today, names as The Word of God. Jesus.
Let’s see why He is called The Word….What is the first book of the Bible? It’s Genesis, right? But if we had not identified this Bible text today, then you might think you were hearing from the start of Genesis. The Gospel according to John purposely opens like it is the story of a New Genesis. It is a new creation narrative, with its own Adam and Eve, its own garden and tree, and its own primordial waters. But it is about the person of Jesus Christ.
The opening of the Gospel of St. John invites us to consider this comparison:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made (John 1:1-3).
This opening is an intentional allusion to the first words that begin in the Bible at Genesis. Genesis 1 says: “In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth.” So compare it to the Gospel of John 1 which says: In the Beginning, the Word. Moses first words of the Torah are In the Beginning, God John’s first ones are In the beginning, The Word…
The Personhood of God is in both phases—the start of the world, as all created by the Word of God-and now in this Moment of the Risen Jesus, and The Re-creation and Salvation of the world for life anew is The Word made flesh, among us, in this Jesus Christ. John 1:14 gets to it—the Word became flesh in Jesus.
Underneath the English term Word is the Greek term Logos. The term logos means the “reason,” or the “account of something,” or the “ordering principle of a thing.” Using this definition, let us think back 2000 years or more to the world of the First Church as John the apostle describes it. The Greek culture was still dominant in the Middle East, where Jesus came to “dwell” physically in His ministry years. Thus, if Greeks used “logos” as the reason or account of something., then know that if Socrates was seeking to understand justice, then he was seeking the logos of justice (the reason of justice). Aristotle would use “logos” to mean an appeal to the intellect—to make an argument by demonstrating the reason of a thing. Here, in our Gospel of John chapter one, see now how the evangelist and apostle John uses Logos to describe the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. The Logos is the Reason of all things, the account of all things, and the ordering principle of all creation. It is this Logos through which all reality was ordered and made. Here’s the kicker, though, this Logos becomes incarnate (or man). St. John writes perhaps the Christmas verse of most importance here in John 1. “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (verse:14). In sum: The ordering principle of all creation has come to his creation and become man. He has a purpose in this to begin of a new creation. He’ll be the New Adam for it.
I hope you got that part, or know it well in your faith. It’s what we must know and communicate to others. Because it leads to the indwelling part that John 1:14b proclaims. Jesus is not just on a trip as the God-man to live on the earth awhile; and then go. No, it’s much more. He wants to dwell in the body and soul of any of His believers. He wants to come in and be born there—as the Emmanuel, God-with-us One.
We hear of it in this Christmas Gospel. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave right to become children of God—not of natural means or by their means, but being born anew into it. As you received Christ and exalt Him in your life, from baptism (and seen by your acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior)—the Lord has re-started things for you. 2nd Corinthians 5:17 echoes St. Paul’s understanding of the same new start. It reads: “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” How so? Jesus is like a New Adam, giving us a merciful relationship re-start back to God, and just as God pulled creation from the primordial waters in Genesis, so too does he pull us as a new creation in Christ from the waters of baptism. He comes to forgive humanity so then to live in a reconciled or redeemed humanity.
This type of reading is called allegorical. The allegorical sense of the Bible familiarizes us with how one thing can serve as a type of another (CCC n. 117). In typology, for example, Christ serves as a type of Adam, and Adam a type of Christ. As the old Adam had his Eve, so too does the new Adam have his. Mary. While Eve listens to the words of the serpent, Satan, and damnation enters the world. Mary listens to the words of the angel, Gabriel, and salvation enters the world. As St. Irenaeus, the second-century bishop of Lyon, teaches: “The knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary”. And “for what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith.” We are called to give our openness and yes to God, imitating Mary, so as to welcome the Word. She even got to do so by welcoming him in flesh as the babe of her womb; we now get to receive Christ as Lord of our soul and body, and fortify this will towards God by feeding on the Sacraments of Christ and the Scriptures, and to live the family life of the Church. Jesus was in the home or house of Joseph and Mary, and now the same Jesus wants to live in the house of the Church, with us. We are meant to receive Him this way, even so much as Mary was modeled to receive Him as babe. Mary also needed to believe in Jesus, which she did, and she is a model of a new Genesis that way. Elizabeth celebrates it when she tells Mary:” Blessed are you who trusted that the Word of Messiah would be fulfilled in you. Who am I to be talking to the Mother of God, yet it is so?!
Someone had also said to Jesus another time “Blessed is she who bore you and nursed you!” He agreed it was a special blessing, but He pointed further: “Blessed are any of you like her who hear the Word of God and observe or keep it, that is, live it forth in faith!” For Jesus knows it will lead to our re-creation or re-birth in Him.
Thus, Jesus is One of New Beginnings. In the beginning, God In the beginning, the Word
In yours and my re-start, our re-creation, our salvation.
In that new beginning, it’s begun by the Word in us, Jesus. Not just Bible verses, but the very Person of God in Jesus in us. It’s even of having the Sacrament of the Real Presence and flesh of Christ to us, to change us—as we get to receive Him. This is all so very Catholic in teaching. It’explains the Mass and our fuss over the Incarnation and also of the reality of what is Christ’ Body, the Church. It’s all about His indwelling plan to live in us. It is all our wondrous life now, of our becoming children of God, so much more our destiny than only being children of flesh.
Hear John 1:11-14 again in this context. “He came to what was his own, his own people, and while many did not accept him. to those who did accept Him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born (anew) not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God. And the Word became flesh*and made his dwelling among us.”
At Christmas, as in knowing the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, and that He is the One and Only Savior of the world, we gather at Christmas to celebrate His dwelling among us. It’s a very big deal. But we Catholics are about the only ones to fully get all of what is going on at Christmas. It is even a grace for a Catholic to even grasp it enough. We hope we can—for it is a Great Mystery and One worthy of its special day and its special Mass.
It all started with Mary’s boy child, and what was beheld in Bethlehem almost 2000 years ago. It is still quite important to the Church Jesus founded, for after all, His Birthday IS a very big deal.
If He never came, there’d be no reason for living. Ah, there it is, the Logos! The Reason for Living. Jesus.
Fr. John Barry