The Word Became Flesh!

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

1 Jn 2:18-21; Jn 1:1-18

Today’s Gospel helps us understand the deeper meaning of Christmas.

To highlight the miracle of Christmas, John gives us a kind of backdrop, taking us back to the times of God’s creation. In this way, John lets us understand that Jesus’ incarnation is God’s plan that was worked through the entire Old Testament. We now realize that Jesus belongs to eternity, both in the past and in the future. 

John’s prologue carries at least three important insights. 

1. By the expression, ‘The Word became flesh,’ John explains the essence of Christmas. In Jesus Christ, we find God becoming a human to subject Himself to pain and vulnerability that has previously been the experience of humanity. God now shares humanity’s very struggle. This is why St. John Chrysostom wrote of Jesus, ‘He Who is becomes what he was not.’

2. John tells us that Jesus is the ‘Word who dwelt among us.’ In other words, we experience God’s nearness in Jesus Christ in a totally different way. God is not an abstract or unseen reality anymore. Jesus is the visible face of the invisible God. Hence, who we behold in Jesus is God Himself, who has come to assure us of His abiding and everlasting presence. 

3. John explains that we have seen God’s glory in Jesus. It is not only the witnessing of the heavenly glory of God in Jesus but also the bestowing of God’s grace to us through Jesus. Now, God’s favor, goodness, kindness, and assistance are poured out upon us. Jesus, who takes away the sins of the world, will fill us with God’s grace in abundance. 

Thus, John structures his prologue in such a way as to answer all our questions regarding Jesus.

Let us pray that we may humbly receive Jesus in our midst to experience the abundance of God’s grace.

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar