READINGS

1. John 1:1-18
2. Ecclesiasticus 24:1-2, 8-12

HOMILY

In today's Gospel, we're faced with one of the most extraordinary texts ever to have been written.

The beginning of St John's Gospel is that to the power of n, because what it says seems so crazy as to be incomprehensible.

So here's a go at seeing whether something of the comprehensibility of it can be brought out.

With Christmas, we start with the baby, we then move to the Holy Family, we then celebrate the mother of God.

Each one is as it were stepping a little bit further back to see what's going on here.

What we have with John is simultaneously both the visibility of the baby and the hugeness of what's really going on.

It's what you get throughout his gospel, which is a particular human being doing something; and yet, it is simultaneously the most high in person speaking into our world.

I think we're really helped in understanding this Gospel by looking at the passage from Wisdom, because it reminds us of the fact that we're dealing with Jewish texts.

And everything in the Jewish text is related to Creation: what we're in; everything that's created (including ourselves); creation is an insider matter; and the notion that it's something good is because the One who is bringing it into being allows hints to those of us who are on the inside of what the Creator is really all about: the creation created through wisdom.

Wisdom speaks her own praises in the midst of her people; she glorifies in herself. 

Now this doesn't mean she's a self-righteous bitch, but means that the principle of wisdom is precisely that it's making a live creation, holding it all together in such a way that it shows off of itself the Glory of God.

It gives off points up to gives away the Glory of God.

In creation, the wisdom comes into our midst to open our eyes to make it possible to be on the inside and, actually, see something clearly for what it is.

Part of the deep sense of this is that everything that is... there's a rationale and a logic to it.

Reality is not simply a chaotic and random series of events and things, but is what the creation means: that there's a rationale, an inner structure of reality, which when it's brought alive (and we're able to share with it) opens us up to what's going on - the possibility of us being participants and insiders in this in creation.

The word creation means God's rational dynamic product that is functional and is for something and inside, which we are and can grow.

When we finally get to St John's Gospel, we have these extraordinary phrases: in the beginning was the word and the word was with God.

So for word (an act of communication), understand the logical structure, the structure of reality: that's what is coming into the world.

The logical structural reality is actually going to enter into creation, to open us up, to actually be able to come to life, to become fully alive in creation, to become sons and daughters of God.

So this baby who is born is not just a baby, but the beginning of the manifestation in our midst of the dynamic structuring reality of everything that is.

It's like a plan and form of communication that is being made alive so that it speaks to us.

If we accept it, we can be included in it, so that we can actually become children of God.

This have nothing to do to 'oh behaving propoerly and so on', but being equal with God as heirs participants in creation on the same level as God.

We actually get to be the heirs of creation. Creation fully alive. Its entire dynamic fully revealed; and we get to be participants in it.

This is something which is less fashionable than it should be in Christian circles: Jesus is actually bringing about the reality of what is.

That's part of what this birth is: it's the beginning of it becoming available and clear to us - the reality of what is.

As John says, the reality turns out to be something much, much better than had been hoped for.

He says the word became flesh and lived among us, dwelt among us. Literally tabernacled amongst us: put its tabernacle in our midst.

This is obviously referring to the Holy One in the tabernacle before the Holy place in the Temple and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son.

What John is saying is that the principle of reality came into our midst as the son was supposed to do through the Holy place, which remember was the Virgin and we have seen his glory.

We have seen this person physically. I saw his face and I touched his hand. That's what this is all about.

He ceased to be invisible and it says full of Grace and Truth. These are the two qualities of God from exodus.

It says Moses gave the Law; the Lord does give a certain it points to this.

Law points to the Grace and Truth (it's not a question of denying the Law), but we've actually seen him.

He's come into our midst, open it up for us so that we can actually participate and receive the grace and the truth and participate in the making alive of creation.

From his fullness, we've all received grace upon grace, we're saying that the real thing turned out to be a much, much more benign and rich presence than anything we could have thought.

The actual structuring reality of what is turns out to have been much, much richer than we could have imagined.

We'll see that, as we develop this with John's Gospel over the years, what's being brought out is how the one came in.

Making it possible for people to receive him and therefore to become children of God, which meant that he became available as a sacrifice of forgiveness.

Those who were able to receive this actually found that forgiveness turns out to be the structuring dynamic of reality.

There's not as it were a Law and then something to be forgiven; there's the structuring dynamic of everything that is, in fact, opened out by forgiveness.

It is this that we're invited to participate in.

John is saying here that this is the one that's coming in; this is the one that John the Baptist pointed to.

What we're seeing here is not merely a baby, but the baby who is going to grow into a man we are going to be able to see, and he's going to become the way the structuring principle of reality opens us up to it and to being participants in it.

This is the greatest thing that could possibly ever have happened.

He said no one has ever seen God; it is God's the only son, God's only son who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.

This was the Lord understood to be the begotten, not created son of God, who had come into our midst thanks to the Virgin who became the Holy place.

That was how the shekinah, the most high tabernacled in our midst and this is how the whole fullness of God became revealed and shown to us.

Not simply something for us to see, but for us to become participants in the making finally alive and full of creation.

So this is the richness of the Christmas story: the fullness of the invitation that's going on and the source of endless joy and the opening up of our imaginations.