In the Beginning....

“In The Beginning…”
Christmas 2010
Rev. Stephen E. Stults
St. Barnabus Anglican Church

Joh 1:1-3
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

In these short verses, St. John sums up that on which theologians have written literally thousands of pages. In the next three verses, John will give us the Gospel compressed, in terms that are at once simple, irrefutable and theologically correct. What an appropriate Christmas reading!

John tells us that God and Christ have always been, i.e. “in the beginning.” He emphasizes this by saying that “In the beginning was the Word.” Now, we Christians know that the Word, when capitalized in the New Testament, always refers to Jesus. St. John thus emphatically tells us that Christ has always been, with, and is God. This is doubly emphasized when the Gospel says, ”The same was in the beginning with God.” John does not want us to miss the point that Christ is God, co-equal and co-eternal with God the Father and God the Spirit, here unsaid but definitely implied.

In vs. 4-11, John unfolds his Gospel message like a flower, each line opening another petal until he reveals the underlying beauty. In vs. 4-5, John tells us that Jesus Christ is life, and that life is the light that illuminates our sad, dark world, bringing life into every heart that is called to receive Him.
Note, however, not all men are called to salvation. John says that “he came unto his own, and his own received him not” and “the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprendeth it not.” We have to realize that rejection came first before the Gospel took root in those called to receive it.

Notice too, how the Gospel came to us before the 1st Advent of Christ. The Apostle John tells us about the last and greatest of the prophets, John the Baptizer. He was to bear witness to the True Light that “lights every man who comes into the world.”

As we have discussed in our treatment of the Gospel proper for the 4th Sunday in Advent, John did not claim to be the Christ, or “that prophet” or Elijah come back to life. He simply said, ”I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.” John the Baptizer was a man filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb.
we spoke about the reaction when Mary was visiting her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptizer. Recall that when Mary entered the house and said hello to Elizabeth, the babe in Elizabeth’s womb leaped with joy at the salutation. When Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost, Mary responded with that wonderful canticle that we sing or say at Evening Prayer, the Magnificat. This great paen of prase begins: “My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior.”

This is the reaction Jesus provokes in those that love Him. This is what we should say in our hearts and souls when we fall down and worship Him: “My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Saviour.” As the result of receiving Jesus into our hearts, He gives us “power to become the sons (and daughters) of God.
” To those who believe on His Name this power comes “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” God calls us and chooses those whom He will to be saved. Glory be to God!

This brings us to the crux of this wonderful Christmas Gospel selection. John tells us that the Word “was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”) In John’s beautiful style, he tells us the most momentous event in history in just six little words: “And the Word was made flesh…” This is the Incarnation, where God became man, where the Second Person of the Trinity became human and “dwelt among us.” Now, we Anglicans have always held this event in very high regard. In fact, one party of the Anglican Communion, those called Anglo-Catholics, hold the Incarnation to be the special moment of all time. They believe the Incarnation to be the moment in history, when God took on manhood, where Divinity put on Humanity, in order that humanity might be saved through Divinity.

How can we disagree with that? We must agree that the Incarnation of Jesus Christ is the central moment of history, which is why history is (or was) divided into B.C. (before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini, the year of the Lord). Despite liberal scholastic attempts to change this into B.C.E. (before Christian era), the fact is plain: Christ’s coming to us in human flesh changes the creation dynamic completely. The Incarnation changes everything because it ushers us into the New Covenant era through the ministry of Jesus Christ. Thus, it really is the central moment of all time. Without the Incarnation, it is impossible to have the miracles, the teachings, the healings, the Transfiguration, the Passion, the Resurrection and the Ascension of Christ. Without Christ, it is impossible to be saved.

Yet, one must focus on the entire life of Christ to really appreciate the Incarnation. Those who focus only on the Incarnation are doing Christ honor, but perhaps are “missing the forest for the trees.”

The Incarnation is where it all begins. This is where the “rubber meets the road”, to quote an old Uniroyal tire ad. The topic of Jesus Christ, man and God, is the center of most of the heresies in the Christian Church. It is the stumbling block for those who do not have the gift of faith. Looking at it outside a Christian viewpoint, it is truly mind-numbing to consider how God, infinite and all-powerful, could take on Man’s nature without diminishing His own Divine nature. Or, that Man could assume Godhood without changing his nature in some respect. Yet, that is exactly what happened in Bethlehem. God took Man’s nature upon Him and in Jesus Christ a new creature was born, one person with two natures, perfect God and perfect Man.

This is exactly where the various heretical sects had their problems. For example, the Arians tried to promulgate a view that there “was a time when Christ was not.” The Council of Nicea quashed this view, and produced the Nicene Creed. Thus, the language, “one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God” came forth to clearly delineate the uniqueness of Christ. Other groups, like the Montanists and the Marcionites, had problems with either the divinity of Christ or the humanity of Christ, or both.

The worst and most pervasive group was the Gnostics, who erred on both sides of the God-Man equation. They either denied the divinity of Jesus or impugned His humanity. Thus, it was impossible for some to accept the gospel of John at face value. Instead, man had to try to figure out everything about God.

For some people, mystery is unacceptable. Like the 17th and 18th century Rationalists, some people refuse to believe in the possibility of mystery. They do not believe that “there is a God and we’re not Him” to quote a favorite Sunday School teacher of mine.

The fact is, some parts of the Christian religion are mysterious. How is it possible for God to take on Man’s nature without diminishing His Own? How could Mary produce a child without a human father or human seed? How could Jesus Christ heal the sick, cure the blind and raise the dead? How could Jesus Christ, a man tortured to death on a cross, rise from a sealed tomb and be seen of hundreds of disciples at once? We don’t know. Shakespeare said, “herein lies the rub.” At some point, the intellectual arrogance of man meets the mysterious infinitude of God and stops cold. Then, the faithless and self-willed turn away and say “It can’t be done, it is impossible.” The faithful, on the other hand, behold the miracle of Christ and say, “All things are possible with God.” The faithful in Christ fall to their knees and say with St. Thomas: “My Lord and my God.”

So it is with us this Christmas, as we celebrate this central moment of all time. Despite the perennial attempt to commercialize and euphemize Christmas out of existence, this is the central moment of history. This is the most wondrous co-joining of Divinity with Humanity in a way that is recognizable but not comprehensible by us. The Council of Chalcedon explained it wonderfully in a doctrine called Intimacy, where the combination of the two natures of Christ occurred without “separation or division”. As well, Chalcedon put forth the doctrine of Integrity, where the two natures of Christ co-exist and co-inhere “without confusion or mixture.” As Anglicans have always believed, Jesus Christ was true God and true Man, at the same time.

Thus it is the most wonderful happening of all time. It is THE penultimate event that saves you and me from death and eternal damnation. Put in a positive sense, we are inheritors of eternal life through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

As our Epistle from Hebrews tells us (from the New King James version):

Hebrews 1:1-5 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; 3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. 5 For to which of the angels did He ever say: "You are My Son, Today I have begotten You"? And again: "I will be to Him a Father, And He shall be to Me a Son"? Who could say it better than that?

Amen, even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

John 1:14
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.