In the name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
“The
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” During
Christmastide, we celebrate the Incarnation, the coming of God to us in Jesus. Matthew
and Luke give us nativity stories with Mary, Joseph, wise men, angels, and
shepherds, but John gives us a cosmic nativity scene. And in doing so, the gospeller
John connects Jesus to Moses and to John the Baptist. Our reading notes that
Jesus “came to his own people.” Though there is a very transcendental nature to
Jesus that is not confined by time or space, Jesus also lived in a very finite
context. He was born in modern-day Palestine, spoke Aramaic, and grew up
learning about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jesus was Jewish, and that
fact not only influences our interpretation of him in Scripture, but also has
important implications for us today.
