What the Word Says

Text: John 1:1-18

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            Christmas Eve and Christmas Day have their distinct flavors, don’t they? There’s a certain feel to the closeness of Christmas Eve with its candlelight holding back the darkness, the glow of Silent Night, the feeling of staying up late til half spent was the night. Then there’s a different energy to Christmas Day, the rising sun, the growing light, the excited early risers and warm aromas of baking. Each has its own feel, things are unique to it that make it distinct, even if both Eve and Morning are all about the birth of our Lord.

            It’s the same with the gospels. There’s a reason that the Church on earth has gathered to read the Gospel of John on Christmas morning, with its talk of light and life. Where the other gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, begin with the account of Jesus’ life from below—telling us about His earthly lineage, His mother, His cousins, and so on—John begins very differently. John’s gospel begins with before anything was made. It begins on the outer edge of eternity and then peers into those first moments of creation, when God spoke. “In the beginning was the Word,” we hear, “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 any thing made that was made.” We hear of the Almighty Word, who was with God, the only God; the Word who was Himself God. We learn of this all-creating, all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal God, existing before everything.

            It is good to know these things about God, His infinite characteristics and attributes. It is good to know that without this Word who is God that nothing would be made. It is good to know that this Word has existed from eternity and will continue to exist for all eternity. But it is not enough to know only this. In fact, it does us very little, if any good to know that there is a God who is powerful and everlasting, even that He is the Creator of everything, but to know nothing of what He thinks or feels about us, His creatures.

            And indeed, God has revealed much about Himself. His thoughts about human life and behaviors, His will for our race and how it can best thrive are all recorded. All these things He has made known through His words. These words have been spoken from the beginning of time, “Let there be…” “He said, ‘It is not good…’” “You shall not…” “You shall…” His words about what humanity should be were spoken in thunderous and blazingly sharp words to His servant Moses on Mount Sinai in the Commandments, the Law, the code for holiness and life. “For the Law was given through Moses,” John explains to us this morning. And through this Law we can learn much. We can learn the best conditions for human life, we can learn what we should and shouldn’t do, what God says is good and proper and useful, and what He says is bad and damaging and hurtful.

            Yet the Law itself is not enough. We learn what is good and right through those words of Law, but in learning that, we also learn how far from it we’ve fallen. We learn how difficult it is to maintain purity and cleanness and holiness. So through the ages, the prophets have come. At many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. He spoke through visions and dreams, through explanations of the Law spoken before, through symbols and oracles and foreshadowing. He spoke warnings of what will happen if what is good is ignored or denied, if what is bad and poisonous is pursued.

            Yet even knowing that—knowing what’s good and holy, how far we have fallen, the consequences of our fall—even that is not enough. We need to know where God stands in relation to us now, fallen creatures that we are. We need to know how He regards those who have broken and poisoned themselves, who are confused and worried and anxious and guilty and maimed. We need to know what He wants to do about us hearers who would not know Him, who would not hear His prophets, who would not, who could not, walk in that Law.

            In many and various ways God spoke to His people of old by the prophets, but now in these last days He has spoken us by His Son. We need more than those words and dreams and oracles and codes and regulations. We need God Himself. And so God Himself, the Word of God who was in the beginning with God, who is Himself God, the Word came to this world to tell us all that we need to know of God and His heart toward us. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth…For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” The Word, God’s final word about us, about you, is Jesus, the Son of God, the Word of God made flesh, who has come to dwell among you, to live in your midst. The Word who was with God in the beginning is now with you, in all the places you live and move and have your being. He’s come to bring you God’s last word about how He feels about you. And that last word is grace and truth.

            We forget that sometimes. After the glory of Christmas is over and the workaday world resumes, the appointments and treatments are scheduled, when the bills are due, when the deathly chill of winter continues—it can be easy to forget. We start to seek the answers to those questions—Where is God? Is He angry with me? Does He care?—and it can be very easy to fall back into looking for the answer in creatures, in the cosmos, in the imaginations of fellow fallen mortals, in the cold stars or the wild of nature with its deadly laws. It can be tempting to seek reassurance in the Law of Moses and our adherence to it. But these are not God’s last Word. These are not His ultimate Word to you. His Word for you is the Word made flesh. His Word for you is Jesus, the life and light of men, the light shining in the darkness, full of grace and truth. His Word is that He has done everything for you, to be with you, to live with you, to share your life and your joys and your heartbreak and even your death with you. He’s come to share grace—all His gifts of eternity—with you, simply because that’s what He wants to do, because that’s what He’s promised to do. He’s come to share truth with you—that He loves you, that He saves you, that you are His no matter what happens to you in this world.

            That’s what this is really all about. The Church year, this season, why we gather together here on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It’s not just about learning information about how Jesus was born. The point is to hear what God really thinks of us, where He stands when it comes to us. The point of Christmas is that He stands with us. He’s taken our side by sharing our flesh and blood. He’s for us, giving His body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. He’s with us, God with us, Emmanuel. And now that He’s united Himself to you, He will never be parted from you. And that, at last, is what we need to know. In the name Jesus, the Word made flesh. Amen.