The Christmas Season is a special time to remember the great miracle of the incarnation when the Word of God took our nature upon himself, forever to be incorporated into the Godhead. As John the Evangelist puts it, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1 and 14). Once the Christmas Season concludes and we return to Ordinary Time, we will mark a new feast in the Church: Word of God Sunday, the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time. The timing of this feast is telling as there is an intimate connection between the incarnation of the Word of God and the divine inspiration of the written Word of God.
In the same way that the mystery of the incarnation holds in tension Jesus’ full divinity and full humanity, the mystery of the divine inspiration of Sacred Scripture holds in tension that the Lord is the primary author of the inspired Word and that human authors and historical forces shaped the texts that we have. The Person whom we encounter when we read the Scriptures is in fact the same Person we encounter in the sacraments. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal points out: “When the Sacred Scriptures are read in the Church, God himself speaks to his people, and Christ, present in his word, proclaims the Gospel” (no. 29). As he was made manifest to the nations in the figures of the magi and to Israel at his Baptism and at the wedding at Cana, so too is Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, made manifest to us in the Scriptures.
That the Word of God comes to us in the Scriptures is presented to us in the liturgy itself. At the conclusion of each biblical reading, the Lector declares, “The Word of the Lord.” This phrase appears nearly 400 times throughout the Scriptures in legal, liturgical, and prophetic contexts. When the Lord has a message for his people, he sends forth the Word of the Lord. Many of the biblical prophets begin their writing in a similar way: “The word of the Lord that came to Hosea” (Hosea 1:1); “The word of the Lord that came to Joel” (Joel 1:1); “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah” (Jonah 1:1); “The word of the Lord that came to Micah” (Micah 1:1). In the Scriptures, the inspired message often begins with “the Word of the Lord,” and in the liturgy today the prophetic message is concluded with the same as a liturgical response.
The Scriptures even record several instances where the biblical authors were conscious of the Word of God directly inspiring them. In calling out the wicked rulers of Judah and the false prophets who preached a false peace, the Prophet Micah said, “But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might” (Micah 3:8). When the Prophet Ezekiel first encountered a vision of the Lord from exile in Babylon, and declared, “And when he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me upon my feet; and I heard him speaking to me” (Ezekiel 2:2). In the Book of Revelation, John the Seer says, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, ‘Write what you see in a book, and send it to the seven churches” (1:10-11). An encounter with the Word of the Lord is a thing that can be felt.
When we encounter the Word of the Lord at Mass or within the privacy of our own homes, it can be a moving experience. The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (4:12). Jesus Christ is living and active, not just some character in a book, even a divinely inspired one. Encountering him in written human words can be a powerful experience.
The Word became flesh, and we rightly venerate and worship his sacred flesh in the Eucharist. We rightly spend time in Eucharistic Adoration, gazing lovingly and quizzically at the Word made flesh in the form of bread. On certain solemnities, we process the Eucharist with incense, candles, and sacred songs. The Second Vatican Council reminds us, “The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord” (Dei Verbum 21). And so it is appropriate also to venerate the Sacred Scriptures with similar solemnity.
The Word has become flesh so that he can dwell among us. The Word can dwell with us literally when we enthrone the written Word of God within our homes, reading it frequently and meditating upon it daily. As this Christmas Season returns to Ordinary Time, may we allow the Word of the Lord to be manifest in our lives through regular encounters with the Sacred Scriptures.
