The Light of Christmas still Shines: the Merry Gospel of John
The liturgical calendar forces one’s mind to turn from the passing scene to the deep and abiding verities of redemptive history — Incarnation, Christmas, and the merry tidings of the Apostle John.
One of the advantages of the liturgical calendar is that it forces one’s mind to turn from the passing scene to the deep and abiding verities of redemptive history — the Annunciation, Incarnation, Christmas, Epiphany, and so on. This turning of the mind is especially helpful for those of us who attend to politics and culture. The churn and vitriol of public discourse is not a healthy diet apart from the consideration of higher matters, and this is especially evident at Advent and Christmas. Indeed, we need a break not only from political life, but the petty vindictiveness of others and even the shame of our failings. Thank God, for Christmas (really).
The Merriment of Christmas
It is worth pondering the fact that joy, rejoicing, and glory are always associated with Christmas, along with humility, poverty, and vulnerability. Here again I find that tension that often provokes my interest — the combination of opposites within the perspective of the deep logos (transcendence and eminence, eternity and temporality, crown and cross, etc.). Christmas is merry indeed and rightly so; but the slaughter of the Holy Innocents casts a long shadow. I do not remember the name of the carol, but there was a line that went this way: “Herod the king in his raging ordered the child to die.” This belongs to Christmas along with all the songs of glory and praise.
Nevertheless, I insists along with the majority of Christendom that Christmas is first and foremost merry. The astounding foundation of Christmas joy is that God has come among us savior. This “as savior” is an important qualification. The God of scripture and right reason is no milksop — He is not a weak-tea spirit of affirmation. Rather scripture teaches us that it is fearful to fall into the hands of God and philosophy brings before us the overwhelming majesty of his being — eternal, infinite, immutable, all-knowing. I’m not sure that merriment is the right response to the presence of God so considered. Perhaps awe, reverence, and yes a little fear are the proper responses to the appearance of the Lord. We need something more in order to understand the merriment of Christmas, and we should begin with some solid dogmatic facts of the Christian faith.
A Little Theology
When we speak of God entering time and space, we are speaking of the Incarnation of the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, also referred to as the eternal Word. This makes God’s coming into the world concrete and personal. Specifically, God the son, came into space and time according to the will of His father. I think the reformed tradition gets it right to speak of the pactum salutis in this matter — it is the will of God the Father to send his son to save a people that the Son will one day rule in the eschatological kingdom.1
The incarnation is literally the “assumption of human nature” by the Son. This does not entail a confusion of being. The Son remains a divine person (an individual subsisting in a rational nature) with a divine nature but joins a created nature (taken from the Virgin Mary) to his own person. In doing so, the Eternal word joins the human family in time, history, and even in a family line. With the assumption of human nature, the Son takes on human will, reason, and body.
The common doctor, Thomas Aquinas puts it this way:
“The Christian must not only believe in the Son of God, as have seen, but also in His Incarnation. St. John after having written of things subtle and difficult to understand, points out the Incarnation to us when he says: And the Word was made flesh. (John 1:14). … It is clear that there is nothing more like the Word of than the word which is conceived in our mind but not spoken. Now, no one knows this interior wordin our mind except the one who conceives it, and then it is known to others only when it is pronounced. So also as long as the Word of God was in the heart of the Father, it was not known except by the Father, Himself, but when the Word assumed flesh — as a word becomes audible — then was it first made manifest and known. ‘Afterwards He as seen upon earth and conversed with men.’”
And when he is actually born in Bethlehem, he even takes on a human name, Jesus. Over time, his devoted followers call him the Christ, the anointed. These basic elements of Christian faith are worthy of contemplation in their own right; but again, we are left with the question of Christmas merriment. Thankfully scripture points the way forward here. These solid dogmas do not exist in abstract isolation. Rather they are wonderfully woven into the dramatic narrative of scripture. The son of God assumed human nature in order to be the savior and to be light in the darkness. In a previous Logos Letter I have dealt with the place of Christmas in redemptive history. Moreover, many theologians have written deeply on this matter. What I want to call attention to is that the incarnation and birth of Christ is an illumination that brings truth and understanding. And for this perspective we can do no better than attend to the Gospel of John.
The Light of Christmas
I concede all honor and submission to every book of scripture and especially the gospels, but I must admit, that the Gospel of John has been my personal favorite for many years. It feels like it was written for philosophers (I know this is not true historically). But John is rarely connected to the Christmas season for the obvious reason that it entirely lacks a birth narrative. Nevertheless, the prologue of John more than makes up for this lack.
First we are told of the Word in eternity and his role creation. We are told that He is a light that shines — he illumines and produces in men understanding and truth. Indeed this illumination is the very life that he has to communicate to mankind. Life in God means light, illumination, knowledge, and truth. (John 1.1-4) John the Baptist announces the coming of the light. And then, the light enters the world. This is difficult to comprehend but we must think of Christ as embodied wisdom and illumination. He is the word of the Father. In the high theology of the Trinity, the Word is the perfect self-understanding of the Father; as such, the Word understands all things, knowing them in their source. Truly divinity walked among us. A high and divine wisdom that illumined but also confounded at times.
“And the word became flesh,” “he dwelt among us,” and he was full of “truth.” (John 1:14-15) Absolute truth and wisdom came among us; truth you could hear, see, and even touch. Wonder and joy. And apparently those who received his words were transformed. They became “children of God” (John 1: 12). This is what we celebrate at Christmas — transformative truth has walked among us and this power echoes on in scripture, sacraments, and the life of the church.
Do we hear the echoes of his wisdom or are we too busy and too loud. It is worth remembering that the Christ himself as well as the prophets went into the desert.
Do we treat his words as life-giving food? As food that brings us to eternal life? (John 6: 26ff)
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12) Do we walk in his light or remain in darkness? Do we walk in life-giving truth or remain in spiritual death and ignorance?
At Christmas, we have much to make us very merry. Transformative truth has come among us bringing eternal life. This is no fantasy, but a concrete, historical reality. The deep truths of the Christian faith are not mystical flights of fancy, but historical events. The light of that event still illumines. Open your eyes, listen, and rejoice.
Let’s give the final word to Bede the Venerable, who although surrounded by dark days of war and disorder, remembered the light of Christ. Commenting on John 1:
And the light gives light in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. The light of human beings is indeed Christ, who illuminates by the presence of his knowledge all the hearts of human beings which are worthy of to be enlightened. The stupid and iniquitous are ‘darkness’. … They can be no means grasp with their intelligence the rays of this light — just as any blind person can be flooded by the brilliance of the sun, although he himself does not behold the sun, with whose radiance he is bathed. Nevertheless, heavenly benevolence does not entirely despise such ones, but employs for them the cure of salvation, by which they may be able to come to see the light. The very Light invisible, the very Wisdom of God, put on flesh ... Appearing in the condition of a human being and speaking to human beings, he gradually brought hearts purified by faith to the recognition of his divine image.[2]
Merry Christmas.
[1] Thomas Aquinas, The Catechetical Instructions of St. Thomas Aquinas (Manila: Sinag-Tala, 1939), p. 21.
[2] Bede the Venerable, Homilies on the Gospels: Book One, Advent to Lent (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1995), p. 77.
“Pactum Salutis” literally means pact or agreement of salvation.
Great to find you here. I agree that John 1 is the book for philosophers, it is my favorite Christmas narrative, too. Apparently we are in good company, even the Jewish thinkers Martin Buber and Viktor Frankl cherished this text of the indwelling word. I happen to have written about it on the 10th day of Christmas, and on Hildegard of Bingens take on the same text. I would love to hear what you think!
https://almutfurchert.substack.com/p/the-10th-day-of-christmas-redeeming