Friends, today’s Gospel comes to its climax with the magnificent phrase: "And the Word became flesh and lived among us."
The
gnostic temptation has tugged at the Church, on and off, for nearly the
past two thousand
years. This is the suggestion, common to all forms of puritanism, that
the spiritual is attained through a negation of the material. But
authentic Christianity, inspired by this stunning claim of St. John, has
consistently held off gnosticism, for it knows that the Word of God
took to himself a human nature and thereby elevated all of matter and
made it a sacrament of the divine presence.
The
Greek phrase behind "lived among us" is literally translated as
"tabernacled among us" or "pitched his tent among us." No Jew of John’s
time would have missed the wonderful connection implied between Jesus
and the temple. According to the book of Exodus, the Ark of the
Covenant—the embodiment of Yahweh’s presence—was originally housed in a
tent or tabernacle. The evangelist is telling
us that now, in the flesh of Jesus, Yahweh has established his
definitive tabernacle among us.
The Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas
Lectionary: 204
Children, it is the last hour;
and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming,
so now many antichrists have appeared.
Thus we know this is the last hour.
They went out from us, but they were not really of our number;
if they had been, they would have remained with us.
Their desertion shows that none of them was of our number.
But you have the anointing that comes from the Holy One,
and you all have knowledge.
I write to you not because you do not know the truth
but because you do, and because every lie is alien to the truth.
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 to be through him,
and without him nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life,
and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
A man named John was sent from God.
He came for testimony, to testify to the light,
so that all might believe through him.
He was not the light,
but came to testify to the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world,
and the world came to be through him,
but the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own,
but his own people did not accept him.
But to those who did accept him
he gave power to become children of God,
to those who believe in his name,
who were born not by natural generation
nor by human choice nor by a man's decision
but of God.
And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory as of the Father's only-begotten Son,
full of grace and truth.
John testified to him and cried out, saying,
"This was he of whom I said,
'The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me
because he existed before me.'"
From his fullness we have all received,
grace in place of grace,
because while the law was given through Moses,
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God.
The only-begotten Son, God, who is at the Father's side,
has revealed him.
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