The Word became flesh

The day after tomorrow we celebrate Christmas. It is, of course, a great family feast. It is also the beginning of the end-of-year holiday period. At a deeper level, however, it is much more than that, as becomes clear if we reflect on ‘the reason for the season’.

Our calling is not merely an earthly one, it goes beyond this life to eternity- Fr Robert Soler

The gospel states that “The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us” (John 1:14). This may have become too familiar, so sadly we do not stop to reflect on what it means.

Here at least two aspects are being stressed: that the Child born for us is the eternal divine Word of God, and that the divine took on our weak flesh. Both affirmations are vitally important and have to be firmly believed and kept together.

First then, the Word of God came to us. Through our word we express what we mean and we communicate ourselves to others; our solemn word given as a promise binds us.

In the prologue to St John’s gospel (Jn 1:1-18), the author presents the Son of God as God’s Word; therefore as the Father’s deepest communication of self (see also Jn 14:24). Through the Word all things came into being (Jn 1:2). He is the light that shines in the darkness (Jn 1:4-5, 9).

He will accomplish the salvation of mankind. Through the very Incarnation of His Word, God renews His promise to frail and sinful humanity, and He starts bringing about our transformation for the better.

The message of the birth of Jesus the Word is “…news of great joy… to be shared with the whole people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you: He is Christ the Lord” (Lk 2:10-11). The birth of Jesus is the cause of great joy precisely because God from the depth of His timelessness has entered our time, the eternal has touched what is temporal so as to charge it with the grandeur of His divinity.

Vatican II stated “…only in the mystery of the Incarnate Word does the mystery of humankind take on light” (Gaudium et Spes , 22). Human beings were created in God’s image and likeness (Gen 1:26), but their dignity was fully revealed only when the Word united his divinity to the humanity he took from Mary.

Through the Word’s ‘assumption’ of our humanity and Jesus’s subsequent dying and rising for us, we have been ennobled and adopted as sons and daughters of God (Rom 8:15-17). The Christian message reveals the fullness and richness of our human dignity.

Furthermore, our calling is not merely an earthly one, it goes beyond this life to the eternity from which the Word came to us to take on flesh.

The second point driven home by St John is that the Word became incarnate. In talking about the birth of Jesus, we often fail to notice that we are saying that the Word of God took on flesh (Latin: caro); yes, precisely our flesh and blood, with its messiness, vulnerability and mortality. The divine Word of God became truly ‘enfleshed’. The holy humanity of Jesus (and that includes his bodily reality) became an outward sign of God’s love and tenderness, and later on in the Passion the vehicle through which Jesus loved us and saved us.

The Incarnation implies that God has entered our reality and is active within it. It conveys that the human body is to be treated with great respect, making all forms of cruel bodily violence morally reprehensible.

Because the Word became flesh we are invited to take a positive approach towards the human body, as Blessed John Paul II taught us with his Theology of the body.

In this Year of Faith, Christmas offers us an ideal opportunity to reflect on the Incarnation of the Son of God and on its implications. By assimilating the truth of our beautiful Christian faith ever more profoundly, we will receive the spiritual energy needed to live out our faith joyously and in a vibrant manner.

Fr Soler is a member of the Society of Jesus.