“The word which God speaks to us in Jesus is not simply one word among many, but his eternal Word.” - Lumen Fidei, 15
As Christmas
rapidly approaches, here are a few thoughts about what it means that the Word
of God was made flesh. My hope is that reading this will prepare your hearts
and minds a little bit more to receive Him when He comes.
First things
first: what is a word? Merriam-Webster says that a word is “a sound or
combination of sounds that has a meaning and is spoken or written.” A word is a
way that we communicate an idea, usually through sounds. But there is also a
visual element to a word as well. It can be written on a piece of paper. Or in
the case of a deaf person, a word can be signed.
As you are
reading the words that I have written here, hopefully the ideas that I have in
my brain are taking shape in your brain. This is what words do. They express
ideas or concepts. A simpler example would be the word “cup.” When you see
“cup” you might picture something like this:
or even this:
The point is
that when you see or hear the word cup, it brings to your mind the basic
concept of what a cup is and what it does. Words express ideas.
In the same way,
Christ, as the Word of God, is an expression of the Father. At the same time,
He both expresses God and is God: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). God our Creator, wishing to
communicate and express Himself to us, sent Christ to make Himself known. God
speaks to us through Christ.
But was it so
important that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”? (John 1:14) We
finite human beings are incapable of fully comprehending an infinite and divine
Being. (If this blog post isn’t enough evidence of that, I don’t know what is.)
So the Word took on human flesh and a nature that we can understand, because it
is just like ours. At the same time, “the Word was God” (John 1:1). He remained
fully divine. By speaking to us in human words and human actions, but with
divine authority, Christ revealed who the Father was and showed God’s great
love for each of us.
What great love
it was for the Word, the Second person of the Trinity, to become man so that we
might understand a little bit about God! It is like a very intelligent father
bending down to explain to his four-year-old son, in the simplest of terms,
what quantum physics consists of.
