Second Sunday after Christmas
John 1:1–18
“In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1).
With these words we are taken to a time we cannot really imagine — indeed, to what lies before time itself. We are drawn into a reality that surpasses our understanding and our categories. It is as if we were given a bird’s-eye view of everything that has ever been: the whole history of the cosmos, all that is, and all that has been.
John deliberately echoes the very first verse of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”(Genesis 1:1). Repeatedly, in the first account of creation, we hear the words: “God said … and it came to be.” God’s word is shown to be powerful — a word that accomplishes what it intends.
And in the Gospel of John, this word of God is given a name, a face. It becomes flesh. It is no longer only a spiritual or heavenly reality, but something material. God has not only left traces of his ideas in creation; he himself has entered into it. God has moved in with us.
When John wrote his prologue, this was a bold and unsettling claim. Many philosophers of the time reflected deeply on the rational principle underlying the world — on what holds everything together. The word logos was often used to describe this inner order and coherence of reality. But for most, this remained an abstract idea, something detached from the material world.
They could follow John’s reasoning up to a point — until verse 14:
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
There, they stopped short.
For many, God and the world, spirit and matter, belonged to entirely separate realms. And the thought that the Word might share the fate of human beings — that it might suffer and even die a shameful death — was unthinkable. The spiritual, they believed, must remain untouched by the material, unsullied by suffering and death.
Perhaps this is precisely what is new and distinctive in Christianity: that God and the world, soul and body, spirit and matter do not exclude one another. They belong together, without being confused or merged.
In Christ, the Word, the irrationality of suffering and death is taken up into God himself. The Christian Logos — the Christian Word — is a wounded Word. It is the Word “who was crucified for us.” And it is the very same Word “who ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.”
What seems senseless and unbearable has been given a place within God’s own wisdom, within his Word.
Creation and salvation are not separate stories. They are two aspects of the same mystery. John sees them together. From the very beginning, creation is oriented toward communion — toward fellowship between God and the world, between God and humanity.
Matter itself has its origin in the Word. It is not an independent principle opposed to God. The world is grounded in God, even as it remains distinct from him. Its deepest foundation lies beyond itself. The world is therefore not self-sufficient, not a closed system. It is open — open toward God, its origin and its goal.
The Word of which John speaks — the Word with a capital W — is the word of all words. God has spoken to humanity “many times and in many ways,” as the Letter to the Hebrews says, including through the prophets. And God continues to speak in history.
But all God’s words lead back to this one Word. And this Word is not an anonymous cosmic formula. It is God himself, who has shown us his face in Jesus Christ. He is the measure of all words. He gives them their meaning and their place. In him, words form sentences, and sentences become a text we can read and understand.
One could even translate the opening line of John’s Gospel as:
“In the beginning was meaning.”
What a liberating thought that is. Meaning does not have to be invented or produced by us. It is already there, from the beginning. At its deepest level, the world and human life are “very good” (Genesis 1:31). And from the very beginning, we are allowed to share in this meaning.
What wonder, and what joy, this God inspires. A wonder that seeks expression in psalms, in praise, and in thanksgiving. And a joy that calls us to a life that bears witness to the Word — through our own words and through our actions.
May we allow the Word who has taken flesh to shape how we speak, how we live, and how we love.
Dominik Terstriep S.J.
