First Sunday of Christmas, December 28, 2025: Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7; John 1:1-18; Psalm 147 or 147:13-21
John begins his gospel with an alternate version of the creation. In the beginning was the word. In this version of the creation, Jesus has been there from the beginning. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. He’s not a new addition in Roman Galilee. He is the source of life: “the world came into being through him“.
This passage from John is the reading for the first Sunday after Christmas for all three liturgical years, one of the few times when the readings do not change with the year. The people who put together our lectionary obviously thought it was important. Don’t only get caught up in the sweet baby, the manger and the shepherds, they are telling us. There’s a bigger story here.
The passage we read today from John’s gospel is full of contrast and mystery. I understand all the words, and I understand each sentence, but I’m never entirely sure I understand the whole thing. The passage also moves from the cosmic – “In the beginning was the word“– to the specific. “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John“.
So here the Word, Jesus, is creating from the beginning, but he is also about to show up to support John’s prophecy. And from the beginning, he has been creating a new world of grace. It is the world of which Mary speaks in the Magnificat:
He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.
On Christmas, we read of a little baby, born in a manger. Everyone in the birth narratives is on the move. His parents had been required to travel to another city to satisfy the imperial power that wanted to count all its citizens. Local shepherds come and bring gifts. Then some eastern kings are on the move, following a star. Then his family is again on the move, fleeing Bethlehem because the Roman governor wanted to kill all the boys under the age of two. They lived as refugees in Egypt before returning to their home. As an adult, Jesus is on the move, preaching. Then he is executed by the Roman authorities. The familiarity of the story may lead us to miss the fragility of his life.
In John, Jesus is not a vulnerable child, but a powerful force, creating a world of justice, grace and compassion, full of grace and truth. The Word did live amongst us. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. And remembering that is as important as remembering that God came as a vulnerable child.
Today’s reading asks us to remember Jesus’s creative power, bringing a world of justice and grace, at the same time as we celebrate the human vulnerability of his life. John’s creation story is not as easy to domesticate as is the birth narrative we hear on Christmas, but it is as important.
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