"In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and he lived among us." That is how John expresses the Christmas event in what is perhaps the most poetic Christian meditation ever written. The Word of God became flesh, he tells us. But what is a word and what insight has John to offer us into this momentous happening? A word is a breath that comes from within us; it is a breath that makes a noise; it is a breath whose noise is not random, but is shaped by the mind, the will, the tongue and the teeth. It is a shaped breath that is intended to do something: to express, to communicate, to act, to love. Our words sometimes wound and hurt. Our words sometimes lie.

We live in a world of greed and anger, where we are even greedy for greed because this has become our way of life. Greed is the fulcrum upon which the world of the consumer moves. We live in a world of lies, where we even tell lies about lying, calling it "being economical with the truth". But God's Word, his eternal self-expression, his breath shaped by his own creative will and purpose, God's word is full of grace and truth. And this Word, this breath of God, became one of us. And the world of greed and lies was decisively confronted by grace and truth. The light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. We are invited at Christmastime to celebrate this great fact.

But how is the light to go on shining? The really remarkable thing about John's Gospel is that it calls us not just to gaze in amazement at the truth of Christmas, at the Word become flesh. But we are called to become Christmas people ourselves: to become living words from a living God; to become living signs of grace and truth to a world full of greed and lies; to become lights that will shine in the darkness, lights which the darkness cannot overpower.

You will have opportunities in your own life to make that small but all-important decision between greed and grace, between lies and truth. Watch for the moment and, when it does come, grab it with both hands. We are called to be Christmas people, God's word become flesh once more.

If everyone of us in church tonight did that, in our professional and well as our personal lives, this world would be a very different place. But we won't be able to do this without constantly returning to adore and worship the God we see in Jesus himself. Don't be fooled. Human beings as they are can't shine as lights all by themselves. To that extent we are like the moon. We can only shine with borrowed light. The difficulty is that most of us opt to remain in a state of constant eclipse. We can't see the sun because the world we are supposed to be illuminating gets in the way. The only way to shine to the world is to gaze long and lovingly on the true light, the life which is our light, the baby who is God's own breath, God's living word. That's what we are asked to do at Christmas time.

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