Christmas Eve – John 1:1–4
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”
On Christmas Eve, we hear the familiar story that begins in Bethlehem, with angels and shepherds, with a child wrapped in cloth and laid in a manger. But the Gospel of John refuses to start there. John takes us further back. All the way back. Back before stables and stars. Back before creation itself.
“In the beginning was the Word.”
Before there was anything to fix, God was already speaking. Before there was anything broken, God was already present. Before there was division, estrangement, or fear, there was relationship, Word with God, Word as God.
This matters, especially on a night like this. Because Christmas is not God’s last-minute rescue plan. It is not God finally deciding to get involved with a world gone wrong. Christmas is the revelation of what God has always been doing: holding the world together in love and moving it toward wholeness.
John tells us that all things came into being through the Word. Not some things. Not just the good and beautiful parts. All things. Which means that the world God comes to reconcile is the same world God first called into being. The world God loves is not an abstraction. It is this world, fragile, wounded, divided, beautiful, aching for healing.
Reconciliation begins not with judgment, but with life.
“What has come into being in him was life.”
Before God confronts sin, God gives life. Before God addresses brokenness, God offers light. The light does not come to shame the darkness, but to dwell within it. That is the miracle of Christmas: God does not reconcile the world from a distance. God reconciles the world by entering it.
The Word becomes flesh. Eternal life takes on human breath. Divine light steps into human vulnerability.
And notice where John places reconciliation, not first in forgiveness, not first in the cross, but here, at the beginning, in the gift of life itself. God reconciles the world by refusing to abandon it. By insisting that what God has made is worth staying with. Worth redeeming. Worth loving all the way through.
That is good news for a weary world.
Because we come to this night carrying a lot. Some of us are joyful. Some of us are grieving. Some of us are relieved just to have made it here. We come from a world still torn by violence, inequality, and fear. We come from lives where relationships are strained, hopes are fragile, and peace feels elusive.
And into that world, into those lives, God does not send an explanation. God sends the Word. God sends life. God sends light.
The light of Christ does not erase the darkness all at once. John is honest about that. But the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. Not because the darkness isn’t real, but because it is not ultimate.
Reconciliation is not instant harmony. It is God’s persistent commitment to restore what has been broken. It is God saying, again and again, “I am still here. I am not done with you. I am not done with this world.”
On Christmas Eve, reconciliation looks small and fragile, a child, a flickering candle, a promise spoken softly. But do not mistake its gentleness for weakness. This is the power that created the world. This is the life that holds all things together. This is the light that refuses to go out.
Tonight, we are invited not just to admire the light, but to trust it. To let it shine into our own broken places. To believe that God’s reconciling work includes us, and calls us to be part of it.
Because if the Word is still speaking, then reconciliation is still possible. In families. In communities. In a divided world. And even in us.
This is the gift of Christmas:
God with us.
Life among us.
Light for all people.
Thanks be to God.
