“The crucial decision”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Sunday, December 29, 2024

John 1: 1-18 (Forward, p. 61) CEV p. 1100

Here, in that section of John’s Gospel called the Prologue, John waxes eloquent about a person he describes as the Word. And surely, what he says about the Word is most glorious:

“In the beginning was the one who is called the Word. The Word was with God and was truly God. From the very beginning the Word was with God” (verses 1-2).

“And with this Word, God created all things. Nothing was made without the Word. Everything that was created received its life from him, and his life gave light to everyone” (verses 3-4).

You would think that, given all these superlatives, that the entire world would have sat up, taken notice, and made obeyance to Him. But, oh no, it did nothing of the same. Just the opposite:

“The Word was in the world, but no one knew him, though God had made the world with His word. He came into his own world, but his own nation did not welcome him” (verses 10-11).

What a surprising, and disgraceful outcome: to think that much of this world’s people didn’t even notice, much less acknowledge, or accept, their Maker and the Author of their lives. Fortunately, this is not the end of the story. There still comes a pivotal moment in our account, a ‘yet’:

“Yet some people accepted him and put their faith in him. So he gave them the right to be the children of God” (verse 12).

That crucial decision, that ‘yes’, changed everything, and entirely changed their status—and their future:

“They were not God’s children by nature or because of any human desires. God himself was the one who made them his children” (verse 13).

And so, it was not at all because of the merits or achievements of any of them. It was not because any of these humans had somehow earned that privilege. No, it was entirely God’s doing, God’s gift. And, it was only through that crucial decision, that ‘yes’, that it became theirs. And so it is with all of us as well. God offers us this prospect, this gift, and there is nothing we can ever do to earn it or merit it. None of us can ever be ‘good enough’. But we can say ‘yes’, and that is enough. That crucial decision is all that it takes. Thanks be to God.

Forward notes: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (verse 1).

“No shepherds. No Magi. No innkeeper. No manger. John’s Gospel gives us none of the traditional images of Jesus’s birth. There are no cute fuzzy sheep or overly sanitized cows offering their food trough for a bed.

“John offers us just a word. A Word spoken in defiance. A Word that transforms the despair of gloom into a bright night of hope. A Word that enfleshes love.

“In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, a small town outside of Baltimore decided to hang lights from house to house across the street under a banner that said, ‘Love lives here!’ This small gesture transformed the sense of isolation into a deep sense of community and hope.

“We can sometimes lose the meaning of Christmas by focusing not on the incarnation but on the cute, happy parts of the story. John’s account of the Word coming into the world puts the emphasis squarely back on the fact that God, the creator of the cosmos, came out of love to dwell among us. The true meaning of Christmas, then, is about Love being born among us.”

Moving Forward: “How will you be love in the world?”

A concluding note: But more to the point: will we accept the One who is Love into our hearts and allow Him to live them and live out His love through our lives, through our words and actions? That is the crucial part of this entire business.