Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Dec. 27, 2015
Icon showing Jesus as the Word of God
Christmas has come, joy fills the world, and the Word that was present at the beginning now brings us the light of God and dwells among us. These verses from Isaiah ring out the joy and exultation that mark the end of the people’s exile in Babylon and their return to Jerusalem. They go beyond triumphant celebration, though, to expressing hope that God will restore the city and the temple as a light of the world, a new Zion that will spring up like a garden to show God’s righteousness and justice.
This is one of the last of the 150 Psalms, bringing the bible’s hymn book to a close in a triumphant climax of praise and celebration. The Psalmist echoes Isaiah’s song of triumphant celebration, thanking and praising God for restoring Jerusalem and bringing the exiles home. Using metaphors of grain and wool, warmth and healing, the Psalmist invokes God’s Word of creation and God’s Spirit wind that bring warmth and life and make Earth’s waters flow.
Second Reading: Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7
This early letter to the Christian community in Galatia, Asia Minor, reminds us that God sent Jesus, born of a woman and fully human, to make us all the children and heirs of God. In its broader context, Paul is giving advice to a community of Jewish and Gentile Christians torn between God’s free gift of grace through faith as opposed to the old law’s “discipline.” His arguments here, and in his later letter to the Romans, would ignite a great debate over justification by faith or works many centuries later in the Reformation.
Gospel: John 1:1-18
“In the beginning … ” Have you noticed that the first words of John’s Gospel are exactly the same as the first words of Genesis? “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth,” God’s Word, “Let there be light” opened up creation. The Word of God that brought the world into being now comes to us as Jesus, the light through which we can see God: The Word was with God, and now lives among us.