A reading from the prophet Isaiah (52:7-10)
How lovely on the mountains
are the feet of the messenger announcing peace,
of the messenger of good news, proclaiming salvation
and saying to Zion, ‘Your God is king!’
Your watchmen raise their voices,
shouting for joy together,
for with their own eyes
they have seen the Lord returning to Zion.
Break into shouts of joy together,
you ruins of Jerusalem;
for the Lord has had mercy on his people,
he has redeemed Jerusalem.
The Lord has bared his holy arm
in the sight of all nations,
and all the ends of the earth
have seen the salvation of our God.
This poem takes up the themes with which the second Isaiah began in chapter 40. A messenger brings to Sion news of peace (shalom), good news of salvation (tob), declaring the reign of God. Watchmen witness the return of the Lord to Sion. The words of comfort with which this prophet began to speak are reiterated: ‘the Lord has comforted (naham) his people’ (40:1) and ‘redeemed Jerusalem’. Exile is at an end, and all nations, the ‘ends of the earth’, have ‘seen the salvation of our God’.
Psalm 98 (97) Like the prophet, this psalmist speaks of the ‘holy arm’ of God bringing salvation to the nations.
A reading from the letter to the Hebrews (1:1-6)
In many ways and by many means in the past, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom he made the ages. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the imprint of God’s own being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. Now that he has made purification for sins, he has taken his seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high. So he is now far above the angels, as the name which he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
For to which of the angels has God ever said:
You are my Son, today I have fathered you,
or:
I shall be as a father to him and he as a son to me?
Again, when he brings the First-born into the world, he says:
Let all the angels of God worship him.
In the coming of the Messiah God speaks a new word to the world. God has spoken in many and various ways through the prophets, but now God speaks through the Son, ‘heir’ of all things, and creator of all. The Son is the ‘reflection’ (apaugasma) of God’s glory, and ‘imprint’ (charakter) of God’s very being. He comes to ‘make purification for sin’. The Letter to the Hebrews will develop this thought by speaking of the sacrifice made ‘once and for all’ (ephapax) (7:27) by Christ, the ‘high priest’ (2:17) of the new covenant. The incarnate Son, originating above the angels, lowers himself even to death, and is then exalted ‘far above the angels’.
The beginning of the holy gospel according to John (1:1-18)
In the beginning was the Word:
the Word was with God
and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things came into being,
not one thing came into being except through him.
What has come into being in him was life,
life that was the light of all people;
and light shines in darkness,
and darkness could not overpower it.
There was a man sent by God.
His name was John.
He came as a witness,
to bear witness to the light,
so that everyone might believe through him.
He was not the light,
he was to bear witness to the light.
The true light
that gives light to everyone
was coming into the world.
He was in the world
and the world came into being through him,
and the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own
and 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 believed in his name,
who were born not from blood,
or from the will of the flesh,
or from human will
but from God himself.
The Word became flesh,
and lived among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory as of an only-begotten Son of the Father,
full of grace and truth.
John witnesses to him and cried out, saying,
‘This is the one of whom I said:
He who comes after me
has passed ahead of me
because he was before me.’
Indeed, from his fullness
we have all received,
grace upon grace,
for the Law was given through Moses,
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God;
it is the only-begotten Son,
who is close to the Father’s heart,
who has made him known.
The opening verses of the Fourth Gospel speak of the incarnation of the Word, inviting us to penetrate to the fundamental truth of the Christmas mystery. John deliberately begins his gospel with the words ‘in the beginning’ (en arche), echoing the book of Genesis, for this is a new beginning for creation. The Word (logos), who was with God in the beginning and through whom everything was made, is the light (phos) coming into the world. The Baptist bears witness. While there are those who do not accept him, those who believe in his name are reborn. The Word ‘became flesh’ (sarx), and lived among us so that we could see his ‘glory’ (doxa), which is full of ‘grace’ (charis) and ‘truth’ (aletheia). He brings ‘grace upon grace’. He makes the invisible God known (exegeisthai).
How does Christological teaching connect with the birth in the manger?
The humanity of the Son of God is the culmination of the love of the Father.