The Incarnate Word
Gospel Reflection for December 31st, 2024 - Luke 1:1-18
Today we get to step into the prologue of John, a beautiful and profound chapter, full of rich theological meanings and implications. We hear of the Word. We hear of the Word with God and that the Word is God. We hear of light shining in the darkness, of a man named John bearing witness to the light. And we hear of flesh.
Flesh.
It is something we truly can’t live with but also something we can’t live without. Jesus sums this up in Mt. 26:41, in the garden of Gethsemane, when He says “the spirit is indeed willing but the flesh is weak.”
As we venture into another year full of hopes, aspirations, goals, and plans, I want to focus for a moment on our flesh, and more specifically that the Word became flesh.
In the new year, we often find ourselves resolved to make it the “best year yet” and that this year will be the year we achieve whatever goals we have been striving for all this time. We tell ourselves that we will become something better, something more, something other than we are right now to fulfill this deep desire to elevate ourselves.
This desire deep within us is nothing new, it speaks to our hearts in not so quiet words - it whispers of the Incarnation, the Word made Flesh. It has been with us since the beginning, when God spoke the world into being and the Word was with Him.
Friends, today’s gospel is a beautiful unveiling of the deepest desires of our hearts and God’s fulfillment of those desires through the Incarnation. We desire to become more, to be more, to do more than merely exist, and that is no accident. Rather it is the reality of our world, of humanity, to desire to be fully alive in Christ.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) discusses this beautifully by stating that “The Word became flesh for us in order to save us by reconciling us with God…” (CCC 457), “so that thus we might know God’s love” (CCC 458) and to realize that “The Word became flesh to be our model of holiness. (CCC459)
So beautiful is the truth of the Incarnation that the CCC goes on to say “The Word became flesh to make us partakers of the divine nature. For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.”(CCC 460)
As 2024 wraps up, I invite you to contemplate on the Word made flesh, dwelling among us, full of grace and truth. I invite you to reflect on your 2025 goals, desires and plans in light of this reality, to see your flesh and to reflect on our God who took up that flesh so that we may be reconciled to Him for all eternity.
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him,
and without him nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life,
and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.A man named John was sent from God.
He came for testimony, to testify to the light,
so that all might believe through him.
He was not the light,
but came to testify to the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.He was in the world,
and the world came to be through him,
but the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own,
but his own people did not accept him.But to those who did accept him
he gave power to become children of God,
to those who believe in his name,
who were born not by natural generation
nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision
but of God.And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory as of the Father’s only-begotten Son,
full of grace and truth.John testified to him and cried out, saying,
“This was he of whom I said,
‘The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me
because he existed before me.’”
From his fullness we have all received,
grace in place of grace,
because while the law was given through Moses,
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God.
The only-begotten Son, God, who is at the Father’s side,
has revealed him.
Beautiful