“THE WORD IS FLESH”
Saint John 1: 1-14
The Feast of The Nativity of Our Lord: 25 December Anno Domini 2015
Father Jay Watson SSP
Is means is! This is My Body is what God says. Take eat, take drink, for the forgiveness of your sins is what your Lord requests, urges, and offers. Peace I give you is what the Savior saves you with. This is Christmas!
In “arche” begins the First Book of Moses... “in the beginning,” and so likewise does the Evangelist start his Gospel: “in the beginning.” He Who is Alpha and Omega, the source and fount, and the end of days, endureth forever.
Do you want to endure forever; not just exist, hang-on, vegetate or ferment, but endure? Where there is forgiveness of sins there is also life and salvation. “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” [Jn. 10.10b]
The Incarnation, the literal and actual “en-fleshment” of God the Second Person with His human nature—Body and Blood—taken from His mother, happened during the Annunciation. But the “Easter moment” if you will, the visible proof to the world, to all the Children of Israel waiting for consolation, waiting for the Promise made to Eve, happened in Bethlehem at the Nativity, the Holy Birth, of Jesus! The Nativity of God means God is man. This means God can suffer and die. This means that Jesus could keep the law and commands that Adam was supposed to keep; that Moses and the Hebrews were supposed to keep; and that you are supposed to do—and do perfectly. This means The Lord could actively obey in perfect obedience and then passively suffer and atone for your disobedience, hatred, murder, and unbelief.
So when Jesus arose on the 3rd Day it was not as God, but as the God/Man…with the same Flesh and Blood that was nailed to the cross; the same Flesh and Blood that came forth from the Virgin; and the same Flesh and Blood that you will banquet upon on this most Holy Feast Day!
But where is the reading from Saint Luke? Where is mention this blessed morn of the Angels and Shepherds, the stable and star? Saint Luke, and Saint Matthew, with their respective Nativity accounts give you the facts, the truth. Blessed John gives you the meaning of it all.
The Gospel is not that a King was born 2,000 years ago Who was powerful, but that Mary delivered the very Word of God—the Second Person of the ineffable and transcendent Godhead. Adonai is Elohim, Adonai is YHWH—I AM! The Lord is God. Emmanuel is fulfilled and laying in the Virgin’s lap: God in the flesh—the Flesh and Blood God, the Man/God, or God/Man! She cradles He Who made the universe. She sings to Him Who sang the stars into being. She suckles He who gives the ravens their food and all animals their meat. It was The Son of God Who spoke the universe into being. He created the sun and moon for He has always been The Light. He is eternal and omniscient and LIFE itself. He shone in the darkness and brought paradise to Adam. Adam and his mate preferred the darkness of self. Cain chose the darkness of murder. The early world pre-flood decided to wallow in the darkness of pagan debauchery. Darkness covered the face of the world and only the light of Christ and His Church, the ark kept Noah and His parishioners safe—Saved!
John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament Prophets, came, and still comes in the “spirit of Elijah” to point all those in the waters of the New + Testament Jordan to the Lamb once and forever slain! Why? So that you might have light and life in you…really in you, inside you, bonded to you, permeating you, indwelling you, re-birthing, re-living, and re-imaging you! There’s so much more mystery and glory here than mere knowledge and remembrance. Even the devils “know” all the facts about The Lord and His historical birth. Satan knows more about the Book of Concord than Dr. Robert Preus, Kurt Marquart, and David Scaer combined (more than Melanchthon and Chemnitz too)
It’s about light that is “Light of Light, Begotten not made, being of the same substance “homo-ousias” with the Father and the Paraclete. This Emmanuel is imminent, He is present, and He came to His own people. The citizens of Nazareth tried to throw Him off a cliff; the citizens of Jerusalem crucified Him. He was as rejected by them as He is by your own “old-Adam.”
It’s whether one receives the Christ-Mass or instead celebrates “chriss-miss” which marks and distinguishes many things. He was born to have flesh that could bleed and be nailed. He was born to be near His beloved family with the same flesh and blood they have. He arose and still remains incarnate so that His final promise to all of you—the bodily resurrection of all flesh—resounds in your hearts and minds by faith. He was born in flesh and blood in a feeding tray so that you would now receive Him by eating and drinking His Body and Blood from a feeding altar.
When you receive the pledge from Jesus in His Supper, and receive Him in true Body and actual Blood, your faith is strengthened. But you also participate in the God/Man and He in you…IN YOU…inside your fallen, sinful, and decaying body. God with you, most assuredly, but also Jesus—God—IN YOU too. This is a mystery. This is the Incarnate sacrament, mystical union, sacramental presence, divination of all of His children.
Even as you were “not born of blood (your parent’s blood and desires), nor of the will of man, but of God” so also you are not saved, fed, and nourished by earthly provender and man-worked beverage. The Christ-Mass means only one thing: “The Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of The Father, full of grace and truth.” The Christ-Mass means only one thing: Take eat, Take Drink!
The Word of The Lord.
Thanks be to God.
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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