The Word Made Flesh

And the Word was made flesh,

and He made His dwelling among us.

I have just finished Viktor Frankl's book

'Man's Search for Meaning' another time.

I have read it a couple of times and I am just astounded

by some of the lessons we learn in this book.

Viktor Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist, in Vienna

when the Nazis came for him.

They took him, and they stripped him of everything,

brought him into several different camps,

and eventually he ended up in Auschwitz,

the terrible termination, death camp.

And they stripped him of everything,

his name, his clothes, his identity, his absolutely everything.

There was nothing.

He was not allowed to use a name.

He was a number, 1-1-0-9-1-4.

That was all he was used to, a simple number,

as were all the prisoners of that time

in the concentration camps.

But in these terrible conditions,

this pitiful and violent and brutal conditions,

Frankl came to an insight.

He had multiple insights, but one was that

not the strongest or the youngest survive.

The ones who survive are the ones

who have found meaning in life.

For him, it was his wife.

He did not know that at the time,

but his entire family had been already murdered.

Yet he found meaning in holding on to

the love he had for his wife.

And that meaning held him through all the horrendous suffering

that took place through all of the camps where he went.

Even in the midst of the most depraved suffering

and brutality human could do to another human.

In the midst of all of this, he unveiled his grand thesis for life

that became his life's work.

Not just the book, The Man's Search for Meaning,

but a thing called 'logotherapy',

a different type of psychological therapeutic approach

that focuses on meaning,

logos is the Latin for meaning.

He said meaning comes through

work, through love, ultimately in life.

And that if we have that, we can endure anything,

the most depraved suffering and brutality.

That is because we have this meaning through love,

that transcends everything.

And in fact, it fuels it, no matter what happens to it.

Love will do anything for love.

In our lives, we search for meaning,

whether we realize it or not,

we are always searching for meaning.

And the world sends a message to us

that there is meaning in certain things.

It tells us that if we consume more, we have meaning.

If we achieve more, we will have meaning.

If we have more stuff, if we have more friends,

then we will have greater meaning.

Work will tell us that if we have the corner office,

then we are of higher value.

If we have a bigger title or a bigger salary,

then we are somehow more meaning.

If we have more money in our life, we have more meaning.

And our social media, TikTok or Instagram,

will tell us that their meaning comes from these viral moments

that we just flick and swipe,

and that is going to give us meaning.

And then there are those who tell us

that if we follow a certain thing,

whether that be a sports team, then we will have meaning.

Or if we follow a particular political party,

and those in political parties will tell us

that they give us meaning,

that they will tell us what means,

and what means is more important in our life.

And all of it is just telling,

everyone is telling us what that meaning is.

But they are all wrong.

That is what we talk about here on Christmas morning,

that they are all wrong.

The only meaning, the true logos, is God.

The true logos is what we believe as Christians,

the baby Jesus.

He is the logos made flesh.

That is what we celebrate,

that that is the profound meaning.

That is a foundation meaning for everything in our lives.

God loves us so much that

He did not just send a messenger,

He sent His very self, His Son.

The message was the Son Himself,

and that the love that He shared

was to show us that love.

There was nothing that could separate us from His love,

and that we could live through this life.

That is the ultimate meaning for our lives.

And all of this other stuff, they are all just a distraction.

They are all trying to tell us, trying to sell us something.

Whether it be their power, or their product,

or their somehow profit.

That is never going to give us true meaning.

See, the only thing that we believe as Christians,

will give us meaning is God and His love for us.

That is what we celebrate today.

That is called, and we have to think about that.

That is what today's gospel is all about,

the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

This is the profound message that we celebrate every year,

to remind ourselves that the God is with us now,

that the Emmanuel God here is with us,

not just once two thousand years ago

in a fanciful sort of theatrical way,

but in the reality of our lives.

Now why does He come as a simple infant?

As a vulnerable little child in a manger

in the middle of nowhere?

Why not in a high palace where we can get some attention,

some headlines?

Because you see, that did not matter to God.

What mattered to God was the lowliness.

Not to shame us,

not to say that wealthy people do not matter.

It is because everyone matters,

from the lowest to the highest.

That is the profound message.

He comes for every single one of us,

not just for those in wealthy places and palaces,

not with just the headlines, it is the ultimate message.

So what does that mean for us?

Well, in Luke's gospel,

we hear about Joseph and Mary,

that there was no place in the inn, right?

And so therefore, God still made His dwelling among us.

You see, what we are called to do at Christmas,

and indeed every day, is to make room for Christ in our own lives.

We have to make some choices.

If we are going to realign our lives

to the true meaning of our life,

then we have to choose something

to make room for Christ in our hearts.

What does that mean?

Well, it is not an addition to our lives.

It is actually a subtraction.

See, that is what you think

we have got to understand about God.

It is always something other than what we think it is.

I am not asking you to do one more thing.

I am asking you to give up something.

Give up some time on the scrolling on the social media.

Give up some time watching the sports.

Not everything.

You do not have to give it all up.

Just give up some time.

Give up some time at work.

Give up some time at all these different things

that take us away from the true meaning of life.

For what?

So that we can spend some more time

with our spouse and our family.

So that we can spend some more time with our children,

loving them, and showing them that this message,

this deep meaning is real.

Some extra time as adult children

to spend some more time with our elderly parents

who maybe are suffering or are lonely.

That we are called to make more room in our hearts for each other.

But see, it is not enough just for our family.

We got to go beyond the family.

We got to go into the community.

We got to make room for those who are hurting.

The lowest, because the profound message of this Christmas,

is the lowest in our community.

And who are those?

Maybe it is a widow or a widower

who has lost a loved one.

And this is their first Christmas alone.

Or they have lost a parent or a child.

And this Christmas reminds them of what they have lost,

not what they are celebrating.

We are called to make room for them in our hearts.

To reach out to them, to say something, and to do something.

But again, that is not enough.

We have also got to make room for the lowest of all,

the most vulnerable.

The broken, the wounded.

Those who are struggling with illness,

whether physical illness or mental illness.

Or those who are finding it particularly difficult

because they are houseless.

They do not have a home in this awful weather.

That we make room for them, at least in our hearts.

That we do not pass them by without any reverence at all.

That we recognize them as a fellow human being

with the Christ in their heart.

Or more importantly for us in this culture today,

the immigrants who are being treated

in all sorts of awful ways.

That we need to make room for them.

Not because that they are here legally.

Maybe they are not.

But they are like Jesus, like Joseph and Mary,

they were searching.

They were refugees.

That they are searching for a better home.

And that we find to make room for them in our hearts.

You see, the ultimate message of Christmas

is God's love is for everyone, everyone.

Not just a select few.

And we are called to be part of that message of love.

Because that is what brings joy to the world.

And our world desperately needs that.

That is the ultimate meaning logos of our lives today.

Let us not believe all those voices.

Because they are all deadly wrong.

They will not bring us happiness.

They will not bring us joy.

No matter how many or how much we listen to them.

We need to listen to the true voice.

The voice of the logos that says

the meaning of life is God's love for us.

And the Word was made flesh

and He made His dwelling among us.