“The Birth of the Logos”

Christmas Eve 2008

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

11:00 pm

Micah 5: 2-5a

Psalm 98

Hebrews 1: 1-3a

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

With these words, the Gospel of John begins.

And an interesting beginning that it is, particularly as we read these words on Christmas Eve.  It is interesting for us to realize, after all, that the Gospel of John contains no references, whatsoever, to what we know as the Christmas story.  The Gospel of John has no accounts of shepherds abiding in the fields, or wise men being guided by a star, or, angels announcing peace on earth, or a virgin being told that she was about to become pregnant. 

Rather, the Gospel of John begins with an encompassing view of the entire history of reality, a grand proclamation about the nature of the cosmos, as it draws our attention back before the beginning of time itself. 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 

As many of you know, the word that is used in the Greek version of this text, and that is usually translated into English as the “Word” is the Greek noun logos. In the beginning was the logos…

What is sometimes forgotten, however, is that this word, logos, was not original or unique to the Gospel of John.  Rather, it was a word that had been used, in Greek philosophy, for many centuries.

From Heraclitus, to Aristotle, to the Stoics, to Philo, philosophers had long wrestled with this idea called the logos.  Some viewed it as the ordering principle behind the universe; others viewed it as the creative force that sustained all things; still others viewed it as the principle according to which all life and all change occurs; still others viewed it as the essence of rational thought or discourse.  It was seen as the structure upon which reason, logic, and order were constructed.  By the time that this Gospel was written, therefore, there was a long established tradition and use of this term, the logos, as the divinely ordered, creative, rational, dynamic force that undergirded all things.

And the logos became flesh and dwelt among us.

When we catch some glimpse of the meaning of this word, we begin to realize the deeper claim that stands at the heart of these familiar words from the Gospel of John. 

The Word became flesh.  In the person of Jesus, the creative principle found its ultimate living expression.  In the person of Jesus, the full force of God’s dynamic, ordered presence became human.  In the person of Jesus, the creative essence from which the universe emanated took on flesh and blood.  The child of Bethlehem, the young carpenter from Nazareth, the charismatic teacher from Galilee, was the incarnation of this mysterious source of all life.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.  What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 

When we comprehend the enormity of what these opening verses from John’s Gospel are proclaiming, we come to a deep and humbling awareness of what exactly we are celebrating on this Christmas Eve.

What we are celebrating is that, in Christ, the very essence of God’s creative power has been revealed.  What we are celebrating is not simply the birth of a peasant child in a humble manger two thousand years ago, but rather the fact that in that child, the energy that is the source of all life has lived among us – as One of us. 

But we miss the point of this declaration – and we miss the point of the Christmas story – if we limit our understanding of Christmas to some peaceful moment in a manger in Bethlehem.  Rather, what we must do is to expand our view, and to realize that the scene in Bethlehem finds its culmination much later in the Gospel narratives.  Christmas was only the beginning of the story.

As the final movement in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio so evocatively reminds us as it weaves the tune for “O Sacred Head Sore Wounded” into the final strains of its joyful musical celebration of the birth of Jesus, the celebration of Christmas should never, and can never be separated from the story of Easter.

And, in this, we come to realize the true message at the heart of our Christmas celebrations.  That is, the logos became flesh, the Word dwelt among us, to reveal to us the true extent and nature of God’s love.  The dynamic energy, that creative essence that the philosophers had been glimpsing for centuries, was revealed to us as a person whose love gave him the power to suffer, even to the point of death, in order to restore all things to God.

It is in his life, in his death, and in his resurrection, that we come to realize the good news that stands at the heart of the Christmas story, and at the heart of the Gospel itself.  That is, that the true power behind all things is a love that cannot be destroyed, even by the seemingly ultimate power of death.   It is a love that willingly and freely gives of itself, knowing that its power cannot be expended; it is a force more powerful than anything else in all reality, for it is was in the beginning with God, and it is the very nature of God. 

And, in this, we discover the true call of the Christian life.  To live in love, as Jesus has commanded us to do, is to align our lives with the logos, the Word, the creative energy that is God’s power at work in this world.  The Christmas story is the story of that great love being born among us, that powerful logos, reaching out to us, calling us into relationship, inviting us to allow our lives to be encountered, to be transformed, to be reborn into a new and everlasting life.  When that happens, when we allow that love to come alive in us, then the song of the angels – peace on earth, and good will to all people – begins to come true in our lives, and in our world, once again.  

And it is that power, and that power alone, that has the power to save us.  As the news reminds us each day, we as humans do not have the power to save ourselves.  Rather, it is the only the power of that divine love which can lift us beyond the struggles, the prejudices, the hatred, the violence, the fears, the insecurities, and the brokenness of this world, into that wondrous vision of a world in which heaven and earth become one – into a place of peace and joy, of grace and truth.

May God grant us the willingness to allow that divine love to be born in us – even as it was born in Mary, on that wondrous night in Bethlehem, so long ago.