The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. – John 1:14

One of the distinguishing beliefs of Christianity is that God became human in a unique person in a non-recurring event. Neither as some series of humans inspired by the Sprit of God - as in the Old Testament prophets - nor as God represented through a series of rebirths - as in Buddhism, but as God in all of the fullness of all God’s divinity becoming flesh in one and only one human ever. This is Jesus the Christ. Properly understood, Christians believed it to be “the” incarnation that we look forward to at Christmas. Two thousand years ago God pitched his tent and lived among us. He carried the name Jesus and was the anointed one, hence the names messiah and Christ that are usually associated with him and his name.

John’s Christmas story, the one we hear read on Christmas day, tells us that Jesus is the son of God and has come from his home heaven and from his Father. You see, to incarnate is of course to be born into somewhere and something, but it also means to be from somewhere prior. For John, the starting place is in heaven before all things. His Christmas story appears quite unlike those told by Matthew and Luke who give us an unwed couple, shepherds and angels, an inn and a manger, and visitors from the East. Mark appears to have wanted to immediately* get on with things and so leaves out the incarnation. But for both Matthew and Luke we have genealogies and family stories about where people and Jesus are from. They are both concerned to place Jesus in the family of God’s people. As a practical matter, it is not a bad idea for God to have a home and a family if God is going to arrive as a baby. I suspect that Matthew and Luke are however thinking more theologically than practically. You may recall that Matthew provides a family history that begins at Abraham and runs through David with several interesting women named. Luke goes even further back and begins with Adam. It seems that Matthew is interested in connecting Jesus with all the Hebrew people while Luke associates Jesus with all people, Hebrew and Gentile alike. Quite the family that he was born from. And then John, likely the last of the Gospels written, goes one really big step further. The Word who was with God in the beginning, who came from God, joins the human family - his human family. The Christian family tree stretches back to David and Abraham and to Adam and Eve before that, and includes all sorts of crazy uncles and heroes and villains, saints and sinners, and finds its ultimate origin in God and heaven because God became flesh and dwelt among us.

Christmas is a time for celebration and thanksgiving, for giving and receiving gifts, but maybe this year in all that it has brought for better or worse, we might remember and celebrate the gift of the Incarnation by giving thanks for where we are from and for our families: parents, spouses, children and all those who have touched our lives. Merry Christmas,
Fr. Bill+

* Mark’s gospel is characterized by Jesus immediately doing this or that.