Our gospel reading for today from the Gospel of John begins with these words, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” John’s words have a familiar ring to them. Let us look at the beginning of the Book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible. The first verse reads as the following: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth”. Now what John wants us to do is to connect Jesus, the Word of God, with the Creation story. John continues with these words, “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” What John is telling us is that Jesus came from God and was with God all the way back to the beginning. Nothing was created without the help of the Only Begotten Son of God, Jesus the Christ.
Today is the first Sunday after Christmas Day, when we are celebrating the birth of Jesus into the world as a human being in the form of a baby. During this time of the Twelve Days of Christmas, the Church reminds us through the Apostle John the true identity of Jesus. There is no other human being who ever lived, lives or will live that can claim what John claims for Jesus of Nazareth. In his own way, John is saying, ‘Hey people, this Jesus whom we claim as the Messiah is God! I know we walked and talked with him while he was on earth, but he is and was always much more than a mere mortal.”
John’s opening paragraph of his book not only establishes Jesus’ divinity, but also encapsulates the Incarnation for us. What exactly is the Incarnation you might ask? Well, it is God becoming man, which in itself is astounding! Think about it! Almighty God, the Immortal One took on mortal flesh. The Creator of all things became of His creations. It would be like a sculptor becoming a statue. What is impossible in our minds to happen, God did for us.
God became mortal to live and die as one of us. God did this to re-establish a relationship that had been broken by our disobedience to God. We broke the relationship, but out of His love for us, God did the impossible to bring us back into communion with Him.
John tells us that even when God became man and died for our sins, “his own people did not accept him.” The Jews, God’s chosen people, whom God had set aside to worship Him and through whose lineage the Messiah would come, rejected the Messiah when He came. It is for our sakes as Gentiles that God allowed this to happen. Yet, many in the world did not recognize Jesus as the Christ. John writes, “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.”
Even today, over two thousand years after Jesus walked this earth in the flesh, the Son of God continues to be rejected. Although the gospel is being preached all over the world, people continue to not accept Jesus as God’s Gift of Salvation. The idea of God becoming man is actually revolting for many. They cannot believe that God would love us enough to lower Himself to do such a thing. This is why the rejection of Christ by the world is so sad, because it is a rejection of God’s abundant love. Others reject Christ, because they believe that eternity is obtained only through our own works and not the work of Christ on the cross. This too is a rejection of God’s immeasurable love for us. Then there are those who do not even believe in the existence of God. For them, God is just an idea made up by humans to help the weak-minded in this world. Miracles are explainable as are all things. There is nothing beyond the finite, the infinite is impossible.
Yet, for those of us who do believe, John offers much hope. John proclaims, “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” It is as St. Paul also declares that through the grace of God we are saved and not by our works lest any of us should boast. It is God’s grace given to us through Jesus Christ that we are re-created by our Creator into new creations. As new creations we are forgiven, redeemed and granted eternal life! The old has been made new.
Jesus is the Gift that keeps on Giving. His love is priceless. There is no other name under heaven or on earth that can save us from our sins, except Jesus Christ. If we truly believe this, then the churches should be the most packed places on earth. There should be standing room only, because if we truly believed that the world is lost without Christ, then we would be bringing everyone we know or meet to church to hear the good news.
In the Apostle John’s time, the only way of communication was through the written word or by word of mouth. Yet, the gospel spread like wildfire throughout the Roman Empire, because the early Christians believed in Jesus even unto death for the sake of the Gospel.
Today, we have mass media and the Internet. There is no reason on earth for every person living on this planet today to not hear the Gospel of Christ. Through satellites we can Google the entire surface of the planet. We can pinpoint human life all over the world. We should be using every means possible to spread the good news to all peoples.
Instead, we are more concerned about offending people or we just don’t want to get involved. We have lots of excuses to not share the joy of Jesus to everyone. I wonder if we even know Jesus in our hearts. Can we say with the Apostle John, “ we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth”?
It is time for us to take a reality check on what we really believe. Either we believe the gospel with all of our heart or we don’t. If we don’t then we might as well stop playing church and stay home on Sundays.
On the other hand if Jesus is the Christ, the only Begotten Son of God, the Creator of all things, then we need to get busy. Our lives on this earth are finite, but we will have all eternity to think about the people we did not reach for the gospel. We have forever to know that we failed to reach others for Christ. Before the Christmas Season ends, let us resolve in our hearts to share the Gift of all Gifts to everyone the Lord brings across our paths. We just might be someone’s only hope of ever hearing the Good News.
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