Christmas Day

“In the beginning was the Word… all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being… He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.” — The Gospel according to John (chapter 1 verses 1, 3 and 10)

On this most holy of days in the Christian Year, we listen to the Apostle John as he reminds us that the Word who has come into the world, the Word who has come from the Father, the Word who has become flesh is the Word through which all things came into being. What John does in his opening overtures of his gospel is to show the inseparable connection between the one who we celebrate as having been born of Mary in a manger as the One from whom all things have come into being… in short, John demonstrates the deep connection (or better, communion) between Christ and Creation.

There was a relation between the two before the “days of his flesh”—the relation of Creator to creation. What this means for John and for us is that what is revealed in the historical life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is what is revealed in Creation and what is revealed in Creation is what is revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

This holy day names and celebrates the beginning of the Creator’s rescue of his creation from the death into which we had plunged it and ourselves—a death from which we could not and indeed did not desire to be delivered. The light that shines on the celebration of the Nativity of our Lord is the same Light that was summoned into existence by the Word of God—“Let there be Light”! That Light, John tells us, is the light that enlightens everyone who comes into the world… May the Light of Eternal Grace shine in our hearts, reverberate on our lips and cause our hands to extend in hospitable love. Merry Christmas!