Lesson from Fr. Paulus | The "Word of God" Sums Everything Up

Dear brothers and sisters of St. Anne's Church, I wish you a blessed Christmas. May his peace be poured upon you. Today we learn how the word became flesh from St. John.He wrote his Gospel towards the end of his long life and wrote for two different audiences.

Primarily, he was thinking of people coming from a Hellenistic (Pagan-Greek) background. Secondarily, he was thinking of his fellow Jews. By calling Jesus the "Word of God made flesh," John wields a term familiar to both groups, but he gives it a shockingly new meaning.

For the Hellenistic Greeks, "Logos," here translated as "Word," referred to the one, unifying force that linked together and put order in the entire cosmos. For Jewish readers, the phrase "Word of God" meant the wisdom of God, often personified in the Old Testament, which informs and directs all his works, including the creation and sustenance of the universe.

St John uses those understandings of this term as a starting place, but by identifying Christ with "the Word," he takes the concept to a whole new level. In proclaiming that through the Word "all things were made," he reveals that the Hellenistic concept of Logos as a cosmic force had missed the mark.

The unity of the cosmos, its order, beauty, and glory, is not drawn from some impersonal force within itself, but from a transcendent, personal, creating God.

Then by asserting that "the Word became flesh," he challenges his fellow Jews to broaden their conception of the Messiah from a merely human king to God himself taking on human nature.

On Christmas day, the Church offers us this tightly-packed biography of our Saviour: all of God's infinite power and majesty wrapped in a few strips of swaddling cloth, sleeping helplessly in his mother's arms; this is Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man, come gently to walk by our sides.

It is popular nowadays to say that all religions are basically the same.

You may have heard the example of people who say that God is like a mountain, and the different religions are the different paths up the mountain. But to say that all religions are the same is neither respectful nor tolerant - it is either arrogant or ignorant.

Religions do have some things in common, but they also have substantial differences. The human family was created for the purpose of living in relationship with God. And so there is a God-shaped void in the centre of our human nature. Before original sin, it was filled with God. But with original sin, our first parents broke away from God. Since then, human beings have been trying to fill that void up again.

This is the common origin of all religions, and it gives them an appearance of similarity; they all start from human nature's built-in, but frustrated, desire to re-establish a stable relationship with God. But the similarity stops there.

When it comes to questions like "What is God like?" and "How exactly can we rebuild our relationship with him?" different religions give different answers. Don't take my word for it - take the time to look them up. All religions start with the same questions, but they give a variety of different answers.

And there's only one religion in which mankind's effort to climb back up to heaven is met by the unimaginable event of God himself deciding to climb down into human nature.

Christmas is one thing that makes Christianity entirely unique among all the world religions. Only we Christians have the privilege of saying, "The Word became flesh, and lived among us."

Today Jesus will come to us again in the Eucharist. Just as he came into the world on the first Christmas; quietly, gently, helplessly, entrusting himself to Mary's care, so he comes to us in Holy Communion, quietly, gently, helplessly, entrusting himself to our care.

God wants to rule our hearts, because he knows that he is a better king than we are. But he is not a tyrant - he won't force his way in.

Instead, he invites us, he reaches out to us, he trusts us, he makes himself weak so as to become our strength. Whenever we receive him in Holy Communion, he looks at us with the same generous and eager eyes that he used to look at his mother Mary on the first Christmas.

He wants to conquer the world, but he refuses to do it alone. He wants to give forgiveness, hope, and meaning to everyone around us who is suffering and searching, but he refuses to do it alone.

Instead, today, just like 2000 years ago, he puts himself into our care. He entrusts us with the task of bringing him into the world. Not because we're so great, but because he is so great that he lets us share his all-important, everlasting mission.

He is glad that we are here today to celebrate his birthday, and he is hoping that we will give him the only present he really wants: our renewed commitment to spread the Good News of salvation to everyone around us - a commitment that we fulfil in our everyday activities, through our way of life, words, and works.

He is eager for us to give him that gift because he loves us without limits, and he knows that if we give happiness to others, we will receive much more happiness ourselves.

As a closing I want to say one more, Merry Christmas, everyone. May the Love, Joy, Peace, and Hope of Christmas be with you always.