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Advent 2025 December 22 Light overcomes

 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not [a]comprehend it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That[b] was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. (Or alternately translated, "that was the true Light, which coming into the world, gives light to every man.")

10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His [c]own, and His [d]own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the [e]right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Familiarity can make us insensitive. These opening words of John's gospel are the Christmas story from a 35,000-foot and eternity-past view. They are hard to find a foothold on because they are so profound and transcendent, so I think we have to take smaller samples of the passage and study those. The whole "thing" is too much, to "calorie-laden" as a spiritual and theological meal to consume all at once.

Jesus is here presented as "the Light," and that theme comes up again in John 8:12, as well as in the Transfiguration and in Peter's epistles and more so in John's.  

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