Our Christmas day Mass gospel is John 1: 1-18.
Merry Christmas and God’s continued blessings today and always. On this Christmas morning, we are reminded that the word of God is alive and active.
The gospel reading is from John and it reminds us about who Jesus is. John states: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”(vs1-2)
God is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the Beginning and the End. He is the Morning Star. Nothing escapes Him. He sees everything. He created everything. “All things came into being through him, but he alone is begotten by the Father.” God made him visible so that the world could be saved by seeing him.
God became one of us. He took on human flesh. Christmas is a celebration of Emmanuel- God who is with us.
These first two verses in John’s gospel talk about Jesus and his relationship with the Father.
John 1: 12 is about our relationship with God. John states: “But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name”
Verse 12 gives us a better understanding of who we can be or rather what we lies ahead for us.
If I accept Him, if I believe him God will give me power to become a child of God.
The central message this morning is that the Son of God became man, so that we become the children of God.
What a profound mystery this is for us to ponder! There is nothing more marvelous or wonderful than this! The eternal Son of God took on human flesh and was born and became man, became our brother.
Saint Leo the Great, reminded us of the new status we inherited from today’s feast. “Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God’s kingdom.”
Saint Irenaeus, reflecting on the work of our salvation states: “The Lord, coming into his own creation in visible form, was sustained by his own creation which he himself sustains in being. His obedience on the tree of the cross reversed the disobedience at the tree in Eden; the good news of the truth announced by an angel to Mary, a virgin subject to a husband, undid the evil lie that seduced Eve, a virgin espoused to a husband. As Eve was seduced by the word of an angel and so fled from God after disobeying his word, Mary in her turn was given the good news by the word of an angel and bore God in obedience to his word. As Eve was seduced into disobedience to God, so Mary was persuaded into obedience to God; thus, the Virgin Mary became the advocate of the virgin Eve.” (From a treatise Against Heresies, by Saint Irenaeus)
Merry Christmas
