As first seen in the prologue, we derive from John's gospel many grand themes which undoubtedly come to the fore at Christmas: light, life, glory, arrivals, receptions, home-making, and abundance, to name a few. Matthew and Luke give us their versions of a historical nativity (with angels, shepherds, magi, and the like), but John's wider lens poetically sums up what's simply hard to describe about Jesus' arrival, character, and purpose.
As Kirsten shared last week, John doesn’t refer to Jesus as the Word throughout his biography, but he does so here. Calling Jesus the Word points to the way Jesus reveals God to the world. Last week, Kirsten encouraged us to think about what a word does — how a word functions. A word communicates meaning. The Hebrew Scriptures were full of words that described the Lord God, but Jesus arrived as that living Word. Jesus is the Word for God, or as Jesus puts it, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”
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