The word was God. The greek word there for word is logos, and logos is that principle in the grecoroman world, that principle that holds the entire universe together. Right. Colossians 115. He is the image of the invisible God, the first born over all creation, by whom all creation coheres. So in ancient christian theology, the creation is the first manifestation of the Logos, the first physical, material manifestation, in that it’s a picture of his love and his care.

Adam and Eve are put into a paradise, right? A beautiful paradise. Right. That’s why we deck out Christmas the way we do. Paradise is restored. Adam and Eve are treated as beautiful paradise, as a material expression of God’s character and love. Think about what it would have said of God if Adam and Eve were put into a warehouse or to a factory, like a Klaus Schwab factory, right? That would have told us what kind of character this creator is.

No, they were put in paradise, a place of love and abundance and delight and warmth and care and the like. They lost it. The world, the first incarnation, as it were, of the Logos, the sun, the second person of the Trinity, cracked and became marred. So, as Athanasius puts it in his book on the incarnation. And so God the Son, the Logos, became human flesh and, as it were, reincarnated himself, not reincarnation, but incarnated himself a second time instead as a human, as the one who fell as a second Adam to bring the paradise back into our lives.

So this is why in the manger scene that you see all the image is right. God promises to Adam and Eve that he will send them a seed who will crush the head of the serpent, but in the process, the serpent will bruise his heel. It’s considered the proto evangelium, the first proclamation of the gospel. Well, what do we see in the manger scene? We see the seed born, the child that’s promised to crush the head of the serpent.

He’s surrounded by, as it were, a new Adam and a new eve, his father and his mother, Joseph and Mary. And then he’s surrounded by animals and shepherds, right? All of this garden motif. And then, of course, the angels, the cherubim and the seraphim are saying, glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace and goodwill towards men. The garden’s been restored. Paradise has returned. In Christ, the very first paradise that was an expression of himself has now been brought back in the fullest expression of himself, as he forever becomes man, God incarnate, as it were.

So this is the most amazing holiday, holy day we can experience, because it reminds us that the whole universe was created to reveal Christ, to reveal the Son and all of his glory, to the glory of God the Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit. The trinitarian frames of reference in there. And that no matter what the bullies in Brussels or the demons in Davos or bumblin Biden try to do, they can never, ever thwart that.

They’re just a bunch of nebuchadnezzars are going to fall and collapse. There’s nothing they can do. So merry Christmas. .