(Please read the Scripture passages first, before the homily.)
Believe it or not, the passage from the beginning of the Gospel according to John is a Christmas gospel. All the words that both Matthew and Luke use to describe the events of the conception, birth and recognition of Jesus as the Savior of the world are presented to us in these first eighteen verses of the Gospel according to John.
In the beginning was the Word, who was with God and was God and through whom all things were made. In Luke’s story, the shepherds decide to go to Bethlehem to see the “thing that had taken place.” The Greek original uses a word that means “something said or spoken: a word”. It is not the same word term that John used in the passage given above, but the idea is similar. This Word of God had existed from the beginning when God first spoke the word in Genesis, and now has taken flesh in Bethlehem.
In times past, God sent the Word to us through prophets, people who heard the word and passed it on the others. In our days God’s Word was made flesh and now makes his dwelling among us. We have much better communication between God and us.
In times past, it was like the telephone system we once had when all calls had to go through an physical operator who would manually connect people together. Now we can call long distances free and each individual can have a personal phone number. Now we have fast connections.
John seems ecstatic about the Word of God. In the beginning was the Word, who was with God and was God through whom all things were made. This Word has become flesh and has made his dwelling among us. The Word has bought a house and now lives on our street. This is what John is so excited about.
How do we celebrate the Word made flesh among us today? Go back to the words, “the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us”. Do I see and you see in the other people in our lives the person of the Word of God? Should we not be excited to see the people God gives us, or are we bored with the Word of God as much as we sometimes seem bored with the people around us?
This is not “times past”. It is the “now time”, the time when God lives among us in God’s own divinely human presence. This is a time for joy. May the joy of God’s presence as the Word made flesh dwell in your hearts, minds and beings ecstatically.