The Gospel reading for Christmas day is the beginning of John’s Gospel. Why not the Nativity readings of Matthew? Good question. Although much of the focus of Christmas is on the Nativity and it is the traditional day of Jesus’ birth, it acts as an icon of sorts of the true meaning of Advent. Which is our waiting for the Second Coming of Jesus, not just remembering his first. John’s introduction to his Gospel serves as the highest theological statement of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ coming into the world for the first time on the cosmic scale. He does not detail the being born in the manger, but the grander invisible elements of the arrival of the king at the fullness of time. This again points us toward the eschatological Second Coming that we are waiting for.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John mirrors the beginning of the Bible itself. Genesis 1:1. In the Beginning, En Arche. John is establishing Jesus as the beginning and the end of all, he does this by calling him the Logos which can made word and is translated as such but we can see we typically capitalise it as Word. In the beginning was Logos, Order, a Command, a Way. This Logos was with God and it was God. This is John’s expression of what would come to be known as the Trinity, he does not have the language just yet to articulate it and it would take a few centuries to develop fully but what John is clear about is that it is somehow simultaneously “With God” and “Was God”.
2 He was in the beginning with God;
The Word is now personified by John, it is not actually an “it” but a “He” and He was was in the beginning with God. A person, not an idea or concept as a Logos was typically considered by Greek philosophy.
3 all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
Everything that has ever existed was made through this Person, this “He” who is with God and is God. Nothing that exists was made without him saying so. A person who is with God and is God allows and causes all things to exist.
4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
In this person is life, this notion of life is the light of men, that means the light of men known as life finds its very source in the Person of the Logos.
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
This light that proceeds from him and is the light of men shines in the darkness, evil, the absents of good, has not overcome this light. John is writing this after all the atrocities that have occurred including the crucifixion itself, darkness did not win against this light that is the life that was in the Him of the Logos.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
Now John introduces the Baptist as a man sent from God. This officially qualifies John the Baptist as a prophet as the evangelist tells us that God has sent him specifically. He tells us his name is John.
7 He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him.
The evangelist establishes his purpose, to be a witness to this light that has come into the world. He would act as a stepping stone for all others to believe in the light. He would be a human link, like all the Saints are, that connects people to the Christ.
8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.
Clarifying again so there should be no confusion, He is not the light that has been previously described that finds its source in a different “He” that is with and is God. This figure of John the Baptist was sent to bare witness to the light but he is not the light. This may seem like a lot of unnecessary clarification but St John the Evangelist and Apostle, is most likely writing from Ephesus where tradition holds that he lived with the Virgin Mary after Jesus bestowed her upon him at the crucifixion. Ephesus will be a hotbed of proto-gnosticism that found it’s roots in the disciples of John the Baptist that rejected Jesus, they exist today in modern times under name “Mandaeans”. They still reject Jesus but see John the Baptist as the penultimate prophet of God. John the Apostle is making a painstakingly clear rebuke to his audience that this belief is wrong and is actually taking away from the Baptists actual mission.
9 The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world.
John the Baptist is a light in a sense but the true light that enlightens every man will be entering the world, people should not see John as the true light as that is someone entirely different.
10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not.
11 He came to his own home, and his own people received him not.
Jesus came into the world, the very world that was made through him but that world does not known him as he is. He was born into a homeland and the people he was born into did not receive him as who he really was. They rejected him,
12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God;
All those that do receive him and believe in his name, which is not just agreeing with him. To believe in a name is take the person into your heart in its entirety to live exactly as they instruct, his name is a symbol of the covenant, to believe in his name is to submit and enter that covenant. By doing this Jesus gives them the power to become children of God. Adam was the last true Son of God, his children would be made in his image but he was made in God’s image. This was lost in the fall. This relationship of sonship to God is being reintroduced in the person of Jesus. This is one of the main reasons for the incarnation, we were too broken so the Word descends to raise us up.
13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
No longer are promises like the old Covenant which were dependent on being born of the right blood or will of men and flesh but a New Covenant through a divine being, through the God-Man, we become born of God.
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.
The Word, who is with God and is God and is also a Person, a “he” became flesh and dwelt or tabernacled among us. The witnesses to this, his disciples including the apostle John beheld this glory, the glory that is of him because of his true sonship to the Father in Heaven.
15 (John bore witness to him, and cried, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.’ ”)
The Apostle John now quotes the Baptist directly, the entire prologue of John’s Gospel might seem like high theology couched with what seem like desperate distancing between Jesus as the Messiah and John the Baptist as the witness to him and that can seem odd to us because we already know this very clearly but as I have previously stated we have to understand the context of who John the Evangelist is writing for. The Evangelist is himself a previous disciple of the Baptist before he follows Jesus, based on the Baptist’s own instructions. John the Evangelist and Apostle sits at the crossroads between those who accepted Jesus and those who thought the Baptist was the Messiah himself. He now directly quotes John to indicate to his audience just how clear this distinction is, John himself says he ranks lower than the Word who became flesh, Jesus Christ.
16 And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace.
The Evangelist, his fellow Apostles and the other followers of Jesus have all received grace and the full of the Word by direct contact. They received his fulness from him in the flesh.
17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
The Mosaic Law was given by God through the mediation of Moses, they were guiding points toward the fullness of the future Messiah but now grace and truth itself has arrived and not through stone tablets but through the person of Jesus the Anointed One.
18 No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.
John makes clear to his audience that no one has ever seen God, this means all theophanies of the Prophets, what Moses saw when he was “face to face” with God was still just a dim shadow of what God really is. He was condescending to them in these “appearances”. The only Son however, in some manuscripts “The only begotten Son” who is in the bosom of the Father or in the heart of the Father has manifested in his person the appearance of God on earth. When you see Jesus, you see God in fulness that we can comprehend with our senses. It is greater than all other theophanies and manifestations that have occurred.
Leave a Reply