In the beginning was the Word…

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.

In Luke, we hear the concrete details of Jesus' birth-his parents went up to Joseph's home town of Bethlehem to be taxed, there was no room for them at the inn, they took shelter with the animals, Mary went into labor, and when the child was born, she laid him in the manger. Luke even anchors the story in history-it was during the reign of Caesar Augustus, when Quirinius was governor of Syria.

But John's gospel is entirely different. It was written several decades after Luke, toward the end of the first century. The Christian community had had time to reflect on Jesus' birth from a theological perspective. In this beautiful poetic passage that begins the Gospel, Jesus is identified as the Word of God, or the Logos in Greek. Logos can mean word, or thought, or reason or pattern. The Greek philosophers used it to mean the pattern or order of the universe. Jesus, whom we know was born into this world as a human being, was with God in the beginning. He in fact, was God. He was there when God was creating the world, and indeed, he was the blueprint or the pattern through whom the world was made. Jesus, whom we know as a human being, existed before the world began, and gave his imprint to the entire created world.

The essential truth here is that when we look at Jesus, we can see God. It's a little like the light spectrum--only a tiny percentage of it is visible, and all the rest is invisible. Jesus is the visible part of God. But actually, the gospel of John makes it sound as though we are seeing the most important part of God when we look at Jesus. Verse 18 of the Prologue which is left out of today's gospel reading says, "No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known." In other words, Jesus shows us God's heart. His birth into the world, his teachings, his life, his death and resurrection all reveal the depth and breadth of God's love for us, in a way that all the doctrine in the world cannot.

I've hardly ever met a child who isn't drawn to Jesus. They seem to know instinctively that Jesus has God in him and God is love. Maybe they can hear the love in his teachings or in the way he lived his life, healing, teaching and embracing all people. Maybe it is the story of how he prayed to God to forgive his enemies, even when he was on the cross. Or perhaps they simply sense his gentle presence, alive and active among us today.

Even people who are alienated by the Church and its mixed history recognize that there is something deeply compelling about Jesus, something that attracts them despite themselves. And people from other faiths are drawn to Jesus as well. The great Sufi poet Rumi writes about Jesus, so do Buddhist leaders like the Dalai Lama and Thich Nat Han. "The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth."

Jesus is the Logos, meaning he is the divine imprint. We were created in God's image, meaning that our souls also evidence the divine imprint. When we encounter him, something within us responds. If we open our hearts to receive the gift of love that he came to give us, we will be transformed. If we trust Jesus, as John's gospel tells us, he will give us power to become children of God, that is, to live lives of love, according to the divine imprint within us.

Verse 16 is also left out of today's reading, but I think it says everything that needs to be said on this joyous and holy feast day: "From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace."