The Logos became flesh and lived among us- John 1

 

Sirach 24:1-12; 

Wisdom of Solomon 10:15-21; 

Ephesians 1:3-14; 

John 1:1-18

Our readings today include some from a couple books you might not recognize. They are from a group of books called the Apocrypha.

(Learn more about the Apocrypha here.)

 … In the back of the Book of Common Prayer you will find the 39 articles. The articles were the essential beliefs of the Anglican Church that were written in the 16th century. In the 6th article it speaks about the books of the Bible, and it says that reading the Apocryphal books is profitable, but they aren’t to be used to establish doctrine. Which is just to say, they are good and important, but not equal to Scripture. … There is a historical reason they aren’t included in protestant Bibles, that has to do with the reformation and the desire to get back to original languages. It does seem like the early Christians valued these books, though they weren’t all in agreement about them belonging in the Bible. I should say that these books are considered Scripture by Romans Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians. … These books were written in the time between when the Old Testament had already been written and before the New Testament books were written. So, they can give us an interesting glimpse into the thinking of Judaism just before Jesus was born.

Our first reading is from Sirach (Sometimes called the Book of Sirach, the Wisdom of Sirach, the Book of Ecclesiasticus, or Ben Sira). In this section we have a hymn of praise for personified wisdom (who is female). We read, 

“I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and covered the earth like a mist. I dwelt in the highest heavens, and my throne was in a pillar of cloud” (24:3-4).

 Wisdom emanates as God’s word (from God’s mouth) and looks for a place to dwell. 

 “Then the Creator of all things gave me a command, and my Creator chose the place for my tent. He said, ‘Make your dwelling in Jacob, and in Israel receive your inheritance” (v8).

 Wisdom finds a home among God’s people in Israel, specifically in the Holy Tent of meeting. Wisdom seems to be, in some way, distinct from God, but in other ways seems to also be God. Wisdom dwells in the Tabernacle, which is where Moses met God face to face in the wilderness. Later, wisdom rests in Jerusalem, which seems to refer to the Temple. 

“Thus in the beloved city he gave me a resting-place, and in Jerusalem was my domain” (v11).

In place of our Psalm we have a reading from Wisdom (or Wisdom of Solomon). Here we have wisdom (again personified as female) working through Moses and leading the people out of slavery. Wisdom is described in ways that make wisdom indistinguishable from God. We read, 

“She [wisdom] entered the soul of a servant of the Lord [Moses], and withstood dread kings [pharaoh] with wonders and signs” (10:16). “She brought them [Israel] over the Red Sea, and led them through deep waters;” (10:18).

 Again, we see that wisdom is in some way distinct from God, but does what God does in such a way that wisdom would seem indistinguishable from God.

We see this way of speaking about wisdom reflected in other places in the Bible as well, especially in Proverbs 8. We read, 

“When he established the heavens, I was there,
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him, like a master worker;
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.” (Prov 8:27-31)

In our Gospel, John seems to be relating wisdom and the Greek idea of the Logos. “The Word” in the original Greek is “Logos”, which is a word that has a dense history in Greek philosophical thinking. People like the Stoic philosophers talked about the Logos as a kind of reason or organizing force that pervades and animates the universe. Logos is a spiritual reality that permeates all things, and in some Greek thought was the medium or intermediary that allowed divinity to interact with humanity. … John uses this idea of the Logos to create a connection between this Greek philosophical idea and the Hebrew idea of wisdom, which seems to be similar. … Christians came to understand this Logos as the second person of the Trinity.

Our Gospel reading is often used for Christmas day, but it doesn’t seem all that Christmassy. We don't see Mary and Joseph travelling to Bethlehem, or the angels appearing to the shepherds. But what's happening is that John is taking us behind the scenes of the Christmas story. John gives us a glimpse into what is happening in the eternal heavenly realm while Joseph and Mary are traveling to Bethlehem, while the angels are appearing to the shepherds, and while the child Jesus is sleeping in the manger. Behind all this is God at work. John gives us a glimpse behind the Christmas scene.

John goes back to the beginning. Before anything was. We are back in Genesis 

"In the beginning…”

 Those words should automatically bring us to Genesis. 

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning".

 Here again we see this distinction. In some way this word is distinct from God- the Word is with God. However, we also see unity with God- the Word was God. John gives us a glimpse at the Trinity before creation, and you get the sense that words are reaching their limit as to how much power they have to describe these things.

The Word- the Son- was with God, and was God. And through God, the Word, all things were made. And just to reinforce the point, John tells us that 

"without him [without the Word] nothing was made that has been made". 

The Word, The Son, was an essential part of the act of creation at the very beginning. Behind the baby that lies in the manger is the one that created the universe. This baby in the manger, in some mysterious way, is God, the Word, the Logos, who (John says) 

"was life [itself], and that life was the light of all [hu]mankind."

 The Word- the Son- the Light- the Life. John can hardly find the words to describe what was happening in Jesus, and he needs to use poetry.

And then John describes Christmas from a heavenly perspective- from behind the scenes. The Word, The Son, the baby in the manger, 

"The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him" (v9-11).

 This is the incarnation- it is when God and humanity merge. God brings human flesh into God. This is the moment when the Author wrote Himself into the script (as the author C.S. Lewis said). After the first Christmas, after the incarnation, there is no way to encounter God the Son, the Word, without also encountering the human person Jesus. … The sadness in this story is that he was not welcomed because the world had become broken and unable to recognize its maker. 

In perhaps the most important and packed sentence in all of the Bible, John says, 

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." (v14) 

That is the behind-the-scenes Christmas story. Behind Joseph and Mary, and the shepherds and angels, and Bethlehem- Behind all this is God reaching out to us in love as one of us. God becoming a fragile baby in Mary's arms. The Word became flesh and lived among us. God did this for our sake, so that we would know God, and God's love for us- To draw us into His family. John tells us, 

“to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13).

 AMEN