“AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH”
Saint John 1: 1-14
The Feast of The Nativity of our Lord: 25 December Anno Domini 2016
Father Jay Watson SSP
En arche en Ha Logos. Arche, sometimes translated as beginning or origin, has the full theological weight (i.e. God’s Word’s weight) in the idea of “ultimate underlying substance” “ultimate undemonstrable principle.” Raw being: I AM.
Eternally existing, always BEING, never “been” or “to be” but BEING. The Lord God infinite and omnipotent. The Holy Trinity always and forever. The Son of God, the Second Person of the Godhead is correctly denominated as Ha Logos, in the Greek, The Word. The blessed Evangelist has it right because The Holy Ghost has it right! Jesus before He was named Jesus…before there was human language, or humans, was with His beloved Father and The Holy Ghost. The Son of God is not just only-begotten Son, begotten not made/not created, but He is God. God of God and Light of Light…homousias…of the same substance as The Father and The Paraclete. One God in three persons.
The universe exists because it pleased The Father, The Trinity, to have The Word create it—to make all matter—creatio ex nihilo—creation out of nothing; nothing save The Word’s grace subsisting will and desire. Rocks and trees and black holes and quasars and dogs and wombats and sharks and mosquitos and Archangels and bacteria…and you…exist because The Word: “ALL things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made.”
In the fullness of time The 2nd Person, The Word, went from being only God (and that word “only” means everything) to being Jesus—Savior—The Word made Flesh; Emmanuel, God with and for you! As He first created life He made it in His own image—men were created in the image and likeness of He Who was Son of the Father and also He Who would be The Son of Man—the Perfect Man/Adam restored.
As He is The Word—He spoke—The light into being. He is that light that has no need of fuel or reaction or elements. He is light—period. He is goodness—period. He is life—period. As He gave His image to Adam and Eve He gave them true light and true life. They spurned Him for the darkness of self…the black abyss of decay, death and damnation. They gave up the peace and harmony of creation for the simulacrum of non-being; the nothingness of Satan and self.
The Logos “shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” Adam rebelled. Cain murdered. The world grew ever more evil. The Logos shined on and through Noah to save…for The Word IS—IS always Savior. The darkness of the world rejected Noah’s preachment of The Word; it perished.
The Word sent a man named John to be His forerunner—the precursor to His public revelation and visible ministry. John the Baptist was the announcer, the search light, the entrée, the God-breathing Prophet who was The Voice of one crying in the wilderness—the dark wilderness—“prepare ye the way; repent and believe!”
This message of law is cried into your ears every day, every Lord’s Day, and even this day—The Feast of The Incarnation. You see The Light, but not in a blinding white flash of uncreated brightness. You don’t witness Genesis 1 or Jesus’ mountain-top Transfiguration. But you “see” His Light—your light by hearing and believing His Word—your life.
John the Baptist was not the light but Christ shone brilliant in John’s life and ministry. John was a witness, that is a martyr, and his blood points you to Christ’s Blood, then and today. And, when John had his own beaten head (a “type” of Christ’s soon to be “sacred head now wounded”) chopped off, the Light of Life, which IS Jesus, flooded John’s dying body and illumined his spirit and soul into Jesus’ own body. John is part of the Body of Christ graced to be called The Church.
The sad thing today, even this morning December 25th 2016, is that though The Word is still in the world, desiring to “lighteth every man,” seeking to know His own, but His own “received Him not.” Adam rejected Him as did Noah’s descendants. Though Abram followed as the Father of Disciples the Canaanites rejected as well as the Egyptians whose land Abraham’s children would dwell in, first as exiles to nature’s decay and later as slaves to man’s sin. Though Moses followed as Law-Bringer and proto-Prophet, Priest, and King, the Children of Israel rejected The Word time and time again. Even after being brought back to the Land of Promise they did not receive The Word gladly in the times of the Judges, or Kings. They like your own old Adams worshipped the creature and not the creator. They unlike you did so out of non-belief and total rejection. You focus more on mammon than the Merciful One due to sinful weakness and failure to hold on to The Word in all its ways of coming to you. The Israelites, the world, “knew Him not” and instead erected groves to the Asherah and baals. The Babylonian captivity was the result of not “knowing” the Lord, The Word. When you walk after your own will and fail to fear, love, and trust in The Word, Christ must come and save you from captivity as well. And He does.
“He came unto His own, and His own received him not.” But He kept coming back like the faithful and good Shepherd, like the loving Father waiting for the prodigal. Coming to those who don’t deserve His mercy is the very definition of self-sacrificial love and Grace.
“But as many as received Him”…be they lepers, prostitutes, zealots, fishermen, tax collectors, cheats, adulterers, blind and deaf beggars, murderers….and even sinners such as yourselves… “to them gave He power to become the sons of God.” He did this through His own appointed “means,” that is, through The Word. The Holy Ghost always and only uses The Word—The Word made Flesh! That is what produces “even to them that believe on His Name.” That is The One born in Bethlehem—The Word, with the Name above all names.
Esaias and Paul, both by the Spirit, say that The Word’s Name causes all knees to bend. The same Holy Ghost that creates faith and regenerates hearts to belief and love. “You were born not of blood—no family ties matter, no genealogy or ethnicity counts for anything—nor of the will of the flesh—no good works or pious preparation or self-righteous cooperation—nor of the will of man—no man is good, no not one—but of God!” You were born of God by God’s very own precious Blood and His innocent suffering and death. The Paschal Lamb hanging on the wooden tree—That is The One born in Bethlehem and placed in the wooden manger. In the beginning was the Word; The Word was God; and The Word was made flesh, homo factus est, and dwelt among you. The Supper is about to begin—The Christ Mass, and there you will Hear and See The Word. You will “behold His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of The Father, full of grace and truth.”
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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