"IN THE BEGINNING…" So John the evangelists begins his gospel today. Matthew, in giving the genealogy of Jesus goes back to Abraham, the father of God's people (although there are a few Gentiles found on the list). Luke's genealogy of Jesus' ancestry goes all the way back to Adam and so embraces the whole human race. We are all brothers and sisters in Jesus' family. John, however, goes back to the very origins of God himself. "In the beginning" echoes the first words of Genesis and creation but John speaks of an even earlier beginning, a beginning that has no beginning but stretches infinitely back into the eternity of God himself.
The Word
We use words as a way of communicating self. And there are many different kinds of words: superficial, deep, constructive, destructive, factual, emotional, funny, sad, encouraging, discouraging, loving, abusive...
God's Word is special. It is creative (as ours too can be). God's Word does not just communicate an idea. It is active; it brings things into existence. Everything that exists flows from the creative Word of God. In a special way it brings into being; it gives life.
A real word, too, communicates its speaker. Communication comes not just from our mouth but from our whole body. We speak of "body language". We can communicate very effectively by not saying anything at all, by remaining coldly silent, by turning our backs, by the expression on our face, by a warm smile or an ear to ear grin.
A revealing Word
God's Word, too, reveals something of his very Self. We can see it first in the whole world around us, which he has made. "The world is charged with the grandeur of God," as the poet said. We live and breathe in a divine atmosphere, a divine milieu (Le milieu divin of Teilhard de Chardin). But today we celebrate that Word of God entering totally into our world in a very special way and becoming one like us. He not only became a human being; he became "flesh". He entered into the very experience of our lower nature, shared our joys and fears, many of our weaknesses, our anxieties and disappointments and even our sense of hopelessness ("My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?").
A Word visible and understandable
But, in taking on flesh, the Word became visible and understandable to our finite minds. In Jesus, the Word became the bridge between our very limited minds and the utterly transcendent being that is the Triune God. As the First Letter of John begins: "We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life - this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it... We declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:1-4).
Life and Light
The two great themes in John's gospel are that the Word of God in Jesus gives Life and Light. Later, he will say, "I am the Resurrection and the Life". He brings life in all its fullness. Not just biological life but the life of the whole person, what psychotherapist Carl Rogers called "the fully-functioning person". So often we are told that most of us just use ten percent of our actual potential. As Tony de Mello would say, much of the time we are only half alive or even virtually dead!
Again Jesus said, "I am the Light of the world." The theme of the struggle between Light and darkness pervades John's gospel. Jesus throws light on the darkness of our human situation. He is the Way: he is Truth-Integrity-Wholeness and he is Life, life in abundance, in all its fullness. He provides the vision (being able to see through the darkness) for us to make our way in this world of 'flesh' (sarx).
The world
And now, just as it was in Bethlehem two millennia ago, he is still in the world, the world which was made through him, and the world which still, in large part, does not know him, a world of violence, anger, hostility and, above all, of fear. Floundering in the darkness of our neon-lit world, many cannot see him, many do not take time to share his vision. He came to his own people and they did not accept him. The Jews first and so many others after (including those with the name/label 'Christian'). What about me?
Those who belong to him
Those who truly believe, those who have cast their lot with him in deep trust, become children of God. And, as true children, they grow more and more into the likeness of their Father/Mother. Belonging to God is not at all a matter of race or religion or even merely of baptism but of total identification with the mission of the Word of God.
"And the Word became flesh..... and lived among us."
The Word of God, in Jesus, entered totally into our sinful human condition. Later on they will say with a mixture of horror and disdain, "This man mixes with sinners and eats with them."
But, to those with eyes to see, in Jesus could be seen the very glory of God. As the Second Reading today says, "He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being". One of the Fathers of the Church (St Irenaeus) had once said, Gloria Deo, homo vivens, the glory of God is a person fully alive. If that can be said of any of us, how much more about the Word made flesh?
An imperfect seeing
And yet, taken merely in his humanity, in seeing Jesus we do not, of course, see the glory of God in its fullness. That is something which is not to be experienced in this life. The full glory of the Son is veiled by the human body through which he communicates with us. Now, as Paul tells us, we can just see as in an imperfect mirror. Yet even that is more than we need to grow in his likeness.
Grace and Truth
For the Word made flesh is full of "grace and truth" and that is what we are also called to have a share in. "From his fullness (pleroma) we have all received, grace upon grace... Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." For "grace" read God's unconditional love poured out on us in so many ways. For "truth" read the total vision of life that comes from the God who made us and which has been given to us by Jesus.
Let us at this Christmas time try to count just some of those 'graces'. And may we be ever more filled with God's grace and truth in the year that is to come.
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