The Nazareth Page - A gospel meditation for your home

December 25, 2025 – The Nativity of the Lord, John 1:1-18

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This Christmas I want to get beyond the glitter and the hype, the materialism and the frantic festivities, the excessiveness and the noise and reflect on the amazing reality that is mostly hidden in contemporary celebrations of this most holy of all days.

We are helped in this approach by the gospel passage that is read at the Mass for Christmas Day. It does not mention Bethlehem or shepherds or wise men. but culminates in what is perhaps the most important words in the Bible: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”

Let’s go back to the beginning,” the creation of the universe. It did not begin with nothing, not even the singularity of energy and mass that issued forth in what some call “the Big Bang.” (Although that is part of the story.) The important question for us to ponder is what went before that event, which is now said to have happened 13.8 billion years ago. What existed before that beginning which with the advances of current science we can at least imagine and say this amazing event really happened. But we are left only with guesses as to what went before.

That is unless we believe in God who always exited, always exists, and always will exist forever. Which is something that we cannot prove by human investigation, but we can certainly accept as a truthful description of reality.

There are many ways to imagine what preceded the creation of the universe, but John’s gospel imagines it as God saying a word! Perhaps something like “Let creation be” or “Now it begins” or simply “Go.” It was certainly a loving word, a word that would echo in power and meaning for uncountable days and years. Well after the word was said, that word became a human person, Jesus the Christ. On that first Christmas the word of God became flesh, which in that time would also mean “very down to earth.”

The Greek word John wrote is “sarx” which has the connotation of being “earthly.” Or as is later said, totally like us except sinless. And the word made flesh in Jesus is a loving act, a forgiving gesture, a compassionate presence in very human form. So, in the beginning God’s  word created all, and in the Holy Land on that first Christmas, God’s love became tangibly real in Jesus. Wow!

David M. Thomas, PhD