What was from the beginning,
what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes,
what we looked upon
and touched with our hands
concerns the Word of life —
for the life was made visible;
This is Jesus, the Word made flesh whom we behold with our eyes this Christmas. Jesus is not just some abstraction about whom we can only think. He is a person whom we can see, whom we can paint, and whom we can build statues to honor. He has a voice which speaks real words to his people, explaining the truth from God. He has flesh upon which the head of John can recline at the first Eucharist, flesh which we can receive at every mass. This is all because of Christmas. It is flesh in every respect like our own. And it is because of this shared human nature that we can have true and real fellowship with Jesus, and through him with the Father.
What was from the beginning,
what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes,
what we looked upon
and touched with our hands
concerns the Word of life —
for the life was made visible;
It is precisely this gift of God in the flesh that makes possible the mystery of Easter. It is the very body that we see and touch that suffers and dies for us. It is because of the fellowship made possible by Jesus becoming one of us that he is able to redeem our fallen nature. It is because he takes on a body that dies, one just like ours, that he is able to bring that body to everlasting life.
God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it (see Acts 2:24).
John the Apostle has much to teach us. His Gospel is at once the loftiest in some ways, yet he himself is as incarnational as anyone else. He knows how important the humanity of Jesus is. He does not tell the Christmas narrative directly, yet he celebrates the gift of Christmas as much as anyone. May he teach us to truly understand, appreciate, and avail ourselves, of the shared human which Jesus takes on. Let us receive his victory over death and his fellowship with the Father.
Light dawns for the just;
and gladness, for the upright of heart.
Be glad in the LORD, you just,
and give thanks to his holy name.
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