The Word of God

Christmas Day. Is 52:7-10; Ps 97; Heb 1:1-6; Jn 1:1-18

Today's Gospel begins with a sentence full of mystery, “In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God.” These words with resonate with hidden meaning, but uncovering their significance requires a brief examination of an ancient problem. The problem is this: what kind of language is adequate for God?

Some examples may be helpful to illustrate this challenge. If we say, “God is the creator of heaven and earth,” we speak the truth, but the word ‘Creator’ only describes God's relationship to the universe as its cause. This word ‘Creator’ is not adequate for us to know God personally. To take a mundane comparison, we may know that Michelangelo painted the image of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, but to know that Michelangelo was the artist is not the same as knowing Michelangelo the person. Similarly, to know God we need a word that is greater than ‘Creator’. 

If, to take another example, we say,  “God is a rock,” or “God is light,” or “God is a consuming fire,” phrases that are all found in Scripture, we again speak the truth but this time by means of metaphors. God is not literally a rock or a light or a fire, but such images convey qualities of God to our minds. God has, for example, rock-like strength and stability, God's revelation is like a light in darkness, God's love is like a consuming fire, and so on. While such metaphors are helpful, they still do not suffice, however, for us to know God personally.

If, to take a third example, we say, “God is good,” or , “God is living,” or simply, “God is,” such phrases do describe the essence of God literally, but still by means of analogies. To say that “God is living”, for example, draws an analogy between the life of God and that of other things that are alive, especially persons, but the life that God enjoys is inconceivably greater than anything we can imagine. So phrases like “God is living,” or “God is good,” are still not enough for us to know God personally.

So it turns out that whether we use analogies or metaphors or describe God's relationship to the things He has created, no human language, no created language is adequate for us to know God personally. Now the Jewish people at the time of the birth of Jesus knew this limitation of human language very well. For this reason, to avoid the idolatry of worshipping a false god, they never pronounced the name of God revealed to Moses; they always referred to God indirectly by phrases like “the Lord,” or “the Almighty,” or “the Blessed One,” and so on. It is with this context that the beginning of the Gospel of John is so extraordinary. St. John reveals that there is a Word, a Word which has always existed, a Word that is adequate to know God personally. And this Word is not merely a sign or a sound like ordinary words. This Word is “the perfect copy of God's nature,” as we are told in the Second Reading. This Word is with God and is God. This Word is itself a person, the only begotten Son of the Father. What we celebrate at Christmas is that this “Word was made flesh and lived among us.”   

So I invite you to picture in your mind's eye the image of the stable, with representatives of every aspect of God's creation gathering around the manger: the child's mother Mary, her husband Joseph, the shepherds who have come in from the fields, the wise men shortly to arrive from the East, the ox and the ass who know their master's crib and the star in the sky. They have come to Bethlehem not simply to revere the birth of a great man, some future prophet or world leader. They have come worship God himself; they have come to gaze on the face of God, God made man for our salvation.

 Father Andrew Pinsent, Sacred Heart Church, Sunningdale, 25th December 2008