A couple of weeks ago, I preached from the opening chapter of John’s Gospel, and the message has stayed with me. I felt led to share it with you.
Christmas first draws us to the manger, a scene small, tender, and beautifully human. We picture a young mother, a watchful father, a feeding trough, and a newborn wrapped in cloth. It is intimate and earthy, close enough to touch. But John’s Gospel will not let us remain in that small circle of light. He pulls the lens back, until Bethlehem becomes a single point in a story as vast as the universe.
John begins not with shepherds or angels, but with eternity itself:
“In the beginning was the Word…”
Before atoms, before galaxies, before time began, the Word already was. The child in the manger is the One through whom the cosmos came into being. The tiny hands that grasped Mary’s finger are the same hands that set the stars in their courses.
This is the cosmic shock of Christmas:
The Creator enters creation.
The Infinite becomes an infant.
The Eternal steps into time.
The manger is not the beginning of Jesus’ story. It is the moment the eternal Word crosses the threshold into our world. The One who sustains all things with divine breath chooses to breathe our air, bear our limitations, and walk our soil. Christmas is not simply a birth; it is a cosmic descent, a divine self‑giving that stretches from eternity into human history.
And John tells us the reason:
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
The Incarnation is God’s cosmic answer to the darkness that touches every corner of human life. Not a distant rescue, but a presence. Not a message from afar, but God with us. The Word becomes flesh so that divine light can enter every shadow, our fear, our confusion, our longing.
From manger to mystery, Christmas expands.
It begins in a stable, but it reaches into the heart of the universe.
It starts with a baby, but it reveals the God who holds all things together.
It looks small, but it is nothing less than a cosmic intervention.
So, when we look at the manger, we are not simply looking at a birth.
We are seeing the mystery of the universe bending low.
We are seeing the eternal Word choosing to dwell among us.
We are seeing the Light that no darkness can overcome.
Christmas is intimate, yet infinite.
Tender, yet transcendent.
A manger, and a mystery.
And that mystery is still unfolding in us today.
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Shalom.
copentecost 