Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen!
There was an exceedingly poor man who lived in north Africa, so poor in fact that he lived in a cave. It was Christmas morning. He was all by himself. He had no friends or family gathered around. There were no visible festivities of any kind. No Christmas tree. No gifts. No decorations. No music. No exuberant meals. No mug of eggnog or slice of Christmas cake. His prized possession was a worn out, threadbare old Bible. He opened it up, as he had done a million times before, and turning to the first page of John’s Gospel he read “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (1:14). He then closed the Bible and pondered in his heart this amazing verse about the Christ child. He then whispered a brief prayer, “Thanks be to God.”
On the same Christmas morning, a million miles away, was a family in Canada. The house was decorated top to bottom with every kind of Santa and Rudolph known to mankind, including about 50 inflatable things on the front lawn from the Grinch to Star Wars. The house was full to the brim with people. Relatives from both sides were there. Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” was blaring loudly in the background. The kitchen table was laden with piles of food and snacks and baking. Children were eagerly tearing into Christmas presents while the adults sipped the Christmas coffee with perhaps even a wee dram of Bailey’s Irish Cream for good measure. A good time was had by all!
Who actually celebrated Christmas, the man in the cave or the festive family??
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (JN 1:14). Isn’t it amazing that we can celebrate this Good News together as God’s people, gathered here in God’s beautiful house, receiving the greatest gift of all: the Messiah, born to set us free. Our Emmanuel has come and He is with us here in this place. The Word of God is here.
St. John refers to Jesus as ‘the Word.’ At first that seems pretty odd and somewhat confusing as we normally call the Bible the Word of God. But in Old Testament times, if you wanted to “see” God, where did you have to look? The psalmist says “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (121:1-2). The idea here is that the visible creation bears the finger prints of God, so to speak. Nature can give us an idea that God exists and created lots of beautiful things. But for a clear, high definition picture of the God Who made it all, you had to look to the Word. The sacred writings, the Scriptures, these painted the true picture of the God of Heaven.
But the thing is, virtually nobody had a printed copy of the Scriptures until very recently in human history. Print copies were extremely expensive as they were all hand copied on animal hides or papyrus paper. And, most everyone was also illiterate. If you had a print copy of the Scriptures, hardly anyone could read it anyways. So most people had to listen. If you wanted to see God, you saw Him “through your ears”. This is how you beheld the amazing promises, the warnings, and the blessings of the King of Heaven.
But on Christmas, it all changed. Everything changed. “The Word became flesh.” God became an up-close and personal God. He becomes the God-Man. It’s a totally mind blowing concept. The creator of everything becomes the creation. This is a fundamental mystery of our faith as Christians. That Jesus is both fully God and fully man at the same time. God isn’t some big force or higher power in the sky. He’s a person. He has a face, a body. He truly has become flesh and dwelt among His people.
Truly this sets our faith apart from everything else. No other religion of the world has a God who would do what Jesus did. Every other religion has a god who is far off, keeping distance from mortals. But our God is different. He didn’t just simply send a telegram or an angel or a task force, instead He Himself became one of us. He spent 9 months in womb of a virgin, being woven and knit together just like each of us were (Psalm 139:13). It’s truly an incredible thing to treasure up in our hearts.
In a small town in rural Saskatchewan there was on old man. He had the reputation of being a bit of a weird cat. Everybody thought he was off his rocker. His whole life was horses. Palominos, paints, greys, bays and browns, you name it, he was a fan. Or perhaps rather, fanatical. This is where the reputation part comes in. Every winter, he would move into the barn with the horses. He’d sleep in the barn, eat in the barn, drink the horse water from the trough. Everybody in town had heard about this, but finally one day someone had the courage to ask him why. Why do you do this? The crazy man answered “I want to know what it’s like to be a horse.”
In a rather odd way of comparison, this is what Jesus did by putting on flesh and dwelling among us. He even got the barn part right too by sleeping in the manger while the cattle were lowing! But why did Jesus do it? It’s far more than an experiment to see how it feels to be human. St. John tells us the answer to this too: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (JN 1:4).
Light and life. These are the things needed by people who are dead and in darkness. Which is all of us. Dead in our trespasses and sins, stumbling around in the darkness of iniquity. There’s a big dark cloud hanging over all of us and it isn’t going away. People try to forget about this with Christmas lights and shortbread and maybe even fruitcake. But it’s still there. Spiritual darkness and death needed to be dealt with. This is why Christ put on flesh and dwelt among us, that light and life may illuminate the world and make it live.
When Jesus became man, it was like flicking on the light switch to a 300 million lumen flashlight! A beacon. A lighthouse brightly shining in the darkness. So bright a light that the darkness of sin, death and the devil could not overcome it. Not even the worst of our own darkness could snuff it out. Not only was our Lord born for this purpose but He also died on the cross for this purpose and more than that, was raised to life again. God became man to give us life, to make the dead live.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (JN 1:14). This is what we celebrate on this day of days! The Word is now seen. He dwells with us in the bread and wine where we taste and see that the Lord is good. May the blessings of Christ Jesus dwell with you richly this Christmas and always! Amen! Merry Christmas!
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