The Word Became Flesh

Joy to the world! Today is, as the Church tells us, “The Nativity of our Lord, Jesus Christ”, or what we commonly call “Christmas”. That term comes from an Old English word meaning Christ’s Mass, which is the religious celebration of our Lord’s birth. Christ, of course, is not Jesus’ last name, but a translation of the Hebrew term “Messiah”, meaning “anointed.” Mass comes from the Latin word “missa,” which means “sending forth.” Scholars believe that Jesus’ real name in Aramaic and was “Yeshua”, which means “God saves.”

The whole point is that names matter, titles matter, words matter. The Gospel the Church chooses for Christmas Day is not the familiar Nativity story from Luke, it’s the very conceptual beginning of the Gospel of John. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) John’s point is to tell us that yes, Jesus came into the world, but He transcends the world, existing before the world. He tells us that God sent forth His Son: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us (John 1:14).” 

Why did John choose to call Jesus “the Word”? The New Testament, in fact, has many names and titles for Jesus: the Bread of Life, the Lamb of God, the Good Shepherd, the Way the Truth and the Life, the Light of the World, the Resurrection and the Life, the Alpha and Omega, the Son of God. The list is far longer, each phrase and title attempting to give us some idea of who and what Jesus is. Words matter, but human words fail to capture the full glory and truth of God’s Only Begotten Son come into the world to save us from our sins. “The Word” is a very basic translation of the Greek “logos,” which implies order, reason, discourse, explanation, power, and logic.

Despite the first sin of Adam and Eve, God chose not to abandon His fallen creation, but to save it. John is telling us that Jesus is the power — the order, the reason, the explanation, the logic — that brings about our salvation. And it all starts on Christmas, the birth of Jesus, the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us. Let us pray that Jesus will continue to come into our hearts today and every day, that we may receive “grace in place of grace” (John 1:16), that the Son may reveal the Father to us, and we may rejoice in our salvation forever. To borrow from Luke’s account: “Glory to God in the highest!”

By Mike Karpus