“CHRISTMAS 2024”
Saint John 1: 1-18
The Feast of The Nativity of our Lord: December 25 Anno Domini 2024
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
Merry Christmas to all on this blessed two-thousandth (+), annual celebration and commemoration of The Lord’s Nativity.
All of the truthful details of Sts. Matthew and Luke, as contained in their Gospels are true and accurate. And the joy and wonderment are so overwhelming to your hearts and minds that every Christmas Eve one finds oneself also surrounded in some sugary, emotional, and nostalgic “feelings.”
We are sinful creatures and we do not yet worship The Lord as the Seraphim in Isaiah 6. We attend Christmas Eve services and then retire to our houses to, sometimes, imbibe in English/American cultural traditions…or Hollywood revisions of said traditions.
But not today, not on The Christ Mass. Today is a John chapter One Day! This Gospel text, the pericope, is deeply theological and not so-much narrative (like the synoptics). That is both okay and desirable by you. For your new-man and new-woman delight in words about God—which is what theology means. It is no wonder that Church History, and The “Fathers” have referred to this Disciple and Apostle as “Saint John the Theologian.”
I read again, and parse, and do my own translation of His Holy Spirit inspired prologue to chapter one of his Gospel—which in truth is like the last Book of Holy Scripture, a Revelation.
“In the beginning,” in “arche” in his Greek. The same exact words that Moses was given in Genesis 1.1. The Lord, The Blessed Trinity was before this start, before the beginning of time and space and matter. This is what we call “creatio ex nihilo,” the creation from nothing. Except there was something—God. And God has chosen to reveal Himself, His Triune Nature and works through The Son. In The Old Testament, and in the Bethlehem New Testament of The Babe’s flesh and blood.
So, before ANYTHING “was The Word,” that is The Logos as John writes. Presupposing that St. John’s Gospel comes after the other three, perhaps closer to the end of his life—more contemporaneous with His three letters and The Revelation, it is still fascinating, in a Faith creating way, that He used the term Logos. This Greek word had much weight and depth even in ancient and 1st century Greek philosophy. Yes, Logos means “Word” (or words=Logoi). But it also means and includes, mind, purpose, thought, and will. The Son is the direct reaching out of The Trinity…to what He would create: the universe, the world, Adam, and all of you.
Logos also is The Son of God Himself. The Son is The Word. “And The Word was with God,” i.e., The Son was with The Father and The Holy Spirit. “And The Word, (The Logos, the Son) was God. Jesus, The Second Person of The Godhead, before He was conceived of The Blessed Virgin, before He was born in true Flesh and Blood, was God. And when He was conceived, He was God—in utero—that unborn baby, in the womb, was God. That infant that came from Mary’s womb on Christmas Eve was God. Saint John is tying His presence in the world of man back to His pre-existence, back to His creating everything: “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” Oh, Wonder of Wonders. He Whom Mary suckled at her breast, Whom she wrapped, swaddled, in cloths, was The very God Who made her, and everything. As the Christmas Hymn, TLH #104 Gospels: “upon a manger filled with hay in poverty content He lay; with milk was fed The Lord of all; Who feeds the ravens when they call.” This infant God, and yet true man—The God/Man, or on Christmas Eve and Day—The God/Baby, was The Logos (The Word) which fed the ravens which He created on day 5. He also fed the very ravens which He then sent to feed the Prophet Elijah with meat—a foreshadowing and “type” of what He will feed all of you this morning at The Sacrament; not just meet but His very true Body!
This incarnation—enfleshment—of The Logos, is the greatest miracle and mystery (Sacramentum) of all.
So, when you eat His Body and drink His Blood you are not just receiving into your mouths Jesus, but God Himself. As The Apostle (Paul) tells you Colossians: “For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of The Godhead bodily” [Col. 2. 9]. What does He feed you with? “In Him was Life; and The Life was The Light of men.” Into your sinful and darkened hearts, in the prisons of your pride He comes: “The Light shineth in darkness.” Glory be to God on high, for God comes down to be God here for you.
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John (the Baptist)… “for a martyr (a witness), to martyr of The Light, that all men might believe.”
Yes, The Evangelist, makes clear the sad truth that the “world,” the rejecting and unbelieving, “knew Him not.” And, “He came to His own, and His own received Him not.” That is the tragic history of The Old Testament—and of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and others during Jesus’ visible ministry. Then and now sinful mankind rejects The Light—The Word—to remain in the darkness of Satan. We pray for all that as many as The Lord has predestined to salvation would be speedily delivered and join us all at The Feast of Faith.
But on this Joyous Noel, This Nativity Day, you celebrate in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving that you have been counted, chosen, and placed into The sheepcote of the Great and Good Shepherd, The Logos, The Word: “…as many (that is you) as received Him (you are + Baptized), to them (you) gave He power (The Holy Spirit in you) to become the sons of God.” For you do truly “Believe on His Name.” That Name is no longer only Logos, or Son, or 2nd Person, but Jesus, Savior. The Name above all Names, at which “every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth” [Php. 2. 10].
You are alive, Redeemed, Sanctified, and In Jesus; as He is in you. You are born again (+): “not of blood (your blood,) nor of the will of the flesh (your flesh,) nor of the will of man, (your choice, decision, or works) but of God.”
The Christmas Gospel is not that The Logos, The Word, exists; not that it is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent—though it is all those and infinite more. The Good News is Emmanuel. The Evangel is “and The Word was made flesh [JESUS], and dwelt among us.” He dwells now today with you. Glory be to God on high, and on earth, Peace, God’s will, good will to men!
“And you behold His glory—at the + Font, in The Scriptures, from the Pulpit, and at the Altar and Communion Rail, “The Glory as of The Only-Begotten of The Father, full of Grace and Truth.”
Merry Christmas, Merciful Christmas:
In The Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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