by Fr. Tommy Lane
Each of the Gospels has its own symbol. As you visit churches and cathedrals, you sometimes see in them the symbols of the four Gospels in prominent places. The symbol for John’s Gospel is an eagle. Unlike us, eagles’ eyes have a feature that gives them protection from the sun and so they are said to be able to look directly at the sun because their eyes can reduce glare. John has crammed so much into our Gospel today (John 1:1-18) that we can understand why he has been given the eagle as his symbol. When we read John’s Gospel, we are like an eagle soaring higher than when we read the other Gospels.
Mark begins his Gospel with Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist. Matthew and Luke go back earlier and begin their Gospels with the angel Gabriel announcing the birth of Jesus. John’s Gospel, as we just heard, takes us back to the beginning of time:
In the beginning was
the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
(John 1:1)
From the very beginning, Jesus, the Word, was with the Father. He became one of us, took our flesh, became incarnate, two millennia ago, — “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” as John writes (1:14)—but from the very beginning Jesus was with the Father. But there really was no beginning because there never was a time when Jesus was not with the Father—it is too much for our minds to understand.
John begins his Gospel with the same words that begin the first book of the Old Testament, Genesis, “in the beginning.” The Old Testament began with the words, “in the beginning” and John begins his Gospel with the same words, “in the beginning,” because John wants us to understand that God is doing a new thing for us in Jesus. God revealed so much in the Old Testament to us about himself and who we are, but in Jesus God is doing a new thing for us. Everything God did for us in the Old Testament is expanded and fulfilled in a new and fuller way in Jesus becoming flesh, one of us—there is a new beginning.
John also shows this another way. Just as we use words like “eternal” to speak of God, the Jewish people used words like “wisdom” and “Law” when talking about things of God. Our first reading today (Sirach / Ecclesiasticus 24:1-2, 8-12) tells us God’s wisdom was present at the beginning. When John wrote his Gospel, he simply changed the word “wisdom” to “word,” Jesus, to help his fellow Jewish people understand that Jesus is fulfilment of what God had revealed throughout the Old Testament. So, instead of “in the beginning was God’s wisdom,” John wrote,
In the beginning was
the Word [Jesus],
and the Word [Jesus] was with God,
and the
Word was God. (John 1:1)
There is always a parallel of some kind between the first reading and Gospel, and today’s parallel is John applying to Jesus the wisdom language in the first reading and showing it is fulfilled in Jesus. So, as John begins his Gospel, describing Jesus in a way similar to the Jewish description of God’s wisdom and Law, he was trying to help his fellow Jewish people grow to accept Jesus as their Messiah in spite of his crucifixion. Of course, he was saddened that most did not accept Jesus:
He [Jesus] was in the
world,
and the world came to be through him,
but the world did
not know him.
He came to what was his own,
but his own people
did not accept him. (John 1:10-11)
But there is another possibility as John also wrote in the Gospel:
to those who did
accept him
he gave power to become children of God. (John 1:12)
That is what happens to us in baptism—we become children of God. In some mysterious way, God’s life enters into us making us his children. We are united with God in a mysterious way through baptism. When Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, Jesus explained what happens when we are baptized: “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” (John 3:3) And “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit.” (John 3:5-6) Of course, we can allow that life of God received at baptism to go to sleep, but John wants us to soar like eagles spiritually and in his Gospel today John reminds us of an awesome offer to each of us from God:
to those who did
accept him
he gave power to become children of God. (John 1:12)
© Fr. Tommy Lane 2025
This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.
More Homilies for the Second Sunday after Christmas
Taking Jesus home 2020
Now I know why you had to do it: a Christmas Parable
God does care about you: the Word became flesh and lived among us
Who are you? 2021
Second Reading: see Chosen by God
Enlightened to our calling and destiny
stories for Christmas