On December 25, throughout the Christian world, men and women celebrate the day, some 2000 years past, on which the Word of God incarnated, the  day on which the Word became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. John states this belief in the opening words to his gospel, enshrining them for all time—“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It is at the core of the Christian Faith.

            Yet as theological statements go, John’s words are about as esoteric as it gets. What precisely do they mean? Stop ten Christians at random on the Main Street of your town and you’re likely to get ten different answers; stop ten theologians, and you’ll get several dozen more.

            Thankfully, we have the Christmas story—angels, shepherds, and wise men; Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—to cut through, with elegant beauty and simplicity, John’s mysticism, simplifying and humanizing the message for all time. “In the beginning was the Word” may be good theology, but the baby in the manger is what touches our hearts.

            In Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road  (recently released as an Oscar-worthy motion picture), the unnamed protagonist applies John’s words to his son—“If he is not the word of God, God never spoke.”—and in so doing further humanizes John’s theology for our times. For it is true: When we look into the eyes of our sons or daughters, are we not seeing the word of God? Are we not coming face to face with what God has created and entrusted to us? And do we not come as close to encountering God as most of us will ever experience when we open ourselves to the miracle that is our child?

            Christmas is a holy day for Christians, but the message it celebrates—that the child is the word of God—is universal. May we unite in prayer this Christmas season that every incarnation of the word, every child entrusted to us by God, might experience through our eyes the unconditional love and peace that is God.