Greeneville, TN
The First Sunday after Christmas Day
December 28, 2025
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Christmas would be so much easier if we just stuck to the nativity scene and thought about all the cuddly sheep, a cow in the background, hay in the manger, angels in the sky, and shepherds filled with excitement. Christmas would be so much easier if we just had to focus on the baby in the manger rather than the Word enfleshed in the horrors of the world… God incarnate among us.
But John's gospel presents us with a different take on Christmas. A different view of incarnation… John leads us into the Jesus story without sheep or shepherds, without a manger, and even without a baby, a virgin mother, or a crowded Inn.
John doesn't even tell us a name until verse 17… Before, he just called him the "Word" or "Logos," but John gets the job done. He tells us exactly what we need to know about who this Jesus person is
and why he came.
By integrating Jewish wisdom, Hellenistic philosophical concepts, and visionary spirituality, John lifts our eyes beyond the earthly history and political systems that Luke sets us in, which I spoke about on Christmas Eve, and John plunges us into the mystery of God, steeped in deep theological and philosophical thought.
Before there was time or creation, there was the Word, or the Logos, who was eternally with God in the beginning, who is eternally God. And this Logos, this Word, John declares, is not some distant thing from us. This eternal Word "becomes flesh and lives among us," full of grace and truth.
John proclaims not only the origin of Christ, but the purpose of his coming... that the life and light of God might enter the world, and that we might be drawn into God's own life. This is the purpose of restoration and salvation that has long been promised.
The prophet Isaiah tells us about the joy that will be expressed when it is all fulfilled. Isaiah cries out, "I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my whole being shall exult in my God." The reason for this rejoicing is God's decisive action. The prophet says, "God has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness."
Isaiah envisions a saved people who are no longer defined by exile or shame, but a people who are vindicated by God's delight... a people restored, adorned, and renamed before the nations of the world. John reveals how this vision is realized… The Word... through whom all things were made... The Word that spoke creation into being… enters the world he created.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. Though the world does not recognize him, those who receive him are given "power to become children of God." This is not a status earned by human effort, lineage, or obedience to law... This is a gift... a gift from God, born of God.
The apostle Paul helps us understand the importance of this gift. In his letter to the Galatians, he reminds the church that before Christ came, humanity lived under the guardianship of the law, protected, yet constrained, awaiting something greater. "But when the fullness of time had come," Paul proclaims, "God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children."
What John proclaims poetically and philosophically, Paul explains pastorally... That the coming of the Son, the Logos, brings us into a new relationship with God. We are no longer slaves, bound by fear or obligation, but children... Children of God who are also joint heirs with Christ who cry out, "Abba! Father!"
The Incarnation, or God becoming flesh and bone, is not merely God coming to visit us in our humanity, but it's God becoming one of us to live among us and adopt us into the family of God. Isaiah helps us understand this adoption using his imagery of clothing and crowns.
To be "clothed with the garments of salvation" is to be clothed with Christ himself. And Paul will later say, "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ." The Word, the Logos, that was made flesh, doesn't just dwell among us, but he wraps us up in his righteousness, and he names us his own.
Isaiah proclaims that God will make his people "a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD." John tells us that this glory is seen in the Son, "the glory as of a father's only son." And Paul assures us that this glory is now shared. If we are children, then we are heirs... heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.
These truths form, inform, and transform us. If we are children of God, clothed in salvation, then we are no longer defined by fear, struggle, or scarcity. We are free to live in trust, gratitude, and hope.
The light that has come into the world now shines through everyone who belongs to it. Therefore, today, we dwell somewhere between the promise of salvation and its fulfillment. We are not waiting for salvation to begin, because we know it began with the Word becoming flesh. But we are now living within its unfolding, knowing that our God has not remained silent. And that righteousness has shone like the dawn. The Word has become flesh, and from the fullness of the Word, we have received grace upon grace.
May we continue to receive Jesus, the true Word of God, anew... not merely as an idea or doctrine, but as the living Word, the Logos, who makes us beloved children of God. And may our lives always be a witness to his love and grace, until the day when all creation rejoices.
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