An Amazing Story (Christmas 2025)

Mark Whittall
10 minutes ago
5 min read

We have an amazing story to tell.

Earlier this evening, we told this story with our pop-up pageant, with shepherds and angels, with Mary and Joseph, with the birth of a child in a manger, surrounded by animals. The birth of a child is always an amazing story, a story of hope and of joy. When we tell the birth story of this child, of Jesus, it is a story that promises peace and love, and announces the good news that God is with us.

It's an amazing story, and so we reach back 2000 years and re-tell it every year.

But in the gospel that we read this evening, John wants to go even farther. He wants to tell an even more amazing story. And so, he reaches back not 2000 years, but 13.8 billion years. His epic poetry places the birth of this child into a much, much bigger context. John starts from the very beginning, from the moment that we’ve taken to calling the Big Bang, that instant when time itself was born, when space was created and all matter and energy had their beginning.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. John’s picture of the birth of Jesus draws an immediate parallel with Genesis, and spins a connecting thread between the birth of this child and the very creation of the universe. That connecting thread is spun using the poet’s image of the Word. The Word who became flesh and dwelt among us is the same Word through whom all things came into being. The Word is God’s Wisdom and creative power, the design and reason embedded in the universe, the Creator’s gracious intent and agency. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. Our universe is not an accident. Our universe hasn’t always been there. Our universe and all that is in it, including ourselves, was created and had a beginning. And not just any old beginning. Scientists now know that when the world began, at the beginning of time that we know as the Big Bang, our universe exploded into being in just the right way to allow for all that we know to come into being. Over the last fifty years we’ve discovered that the natural laws and physical constants of our universe are finely tuned to allow interesting things to happen, not the least interesting of which is the wondrous emergence of life, including human life. To take but one example, if the force which governed and still governs the expansion of the universe had been just a little bit bigger, slowing the expansion, the whole universe would have collapsed back into nothingness not long after the big bang. Yet if that same force had been just a little bit smaller, the universe would have expanded so fast that nothing would have been able to clump together, no stars, no galaxies, no planets, just a thin gas of ever-distancing particles in space. And when I say “just a little bit”, what I actually mean is one part in 10^-60, which means you have to put 60 zeroes after the decimal point before you get a one. A really little bit. And this is just one of the physical constants that had to be finely-tuned at the moment of creation in order to allow us to emerge some 13.8 billion years later. Our universe is not accidental. It is the work of an unimaginably great artist and engineer: sculpted for beauty and fine-tuned for life.

“All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being through him was life.”

This is the one, John tells us, who is coming into the world. The very wisdom, power and intent that created and fine-tuned this universe for us would enter into creation as a tiny baby, as the Word become flesh, and he would live among us.

Are you still with me? I told you this was an amazing story.

Why would this One, the Word who was with God in the beginning and is God, why would this One come into our world? One reason, John tells us, is so that we could see ourselves in a new light. So that we could see the truth about ourselves. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. Jesus came so that we could be enlightened, so that we could see ourselves in a new light.

So that we could know that we are of consequence, each one of us. So that we would know that we are more than just an accidental arrangement of atoms and molecules. Now, it is true that we are made of matter. When the universe was created, it was created in such a way that stars and galaxies were formed, and these stars burned with a heat that produced all the heavier elements that are needed for life. Eventually enough stars exploded to scatter these elements and allow for the formation of planets, such as our own, and, billions of years later, bodies such as our own, which are made from the scattered stardust of ancient stellar explosions. So we are matter but we are not just matter. Our lives have meaning and purpose. We were created and intended from the beginning, and life was breathed into us, spirit and consciousness was embodied in us, so that we would not just be human, but we could experience what it is like to be human. In us, the universe has become conscious of itself. We are not an accident, we’re not the random product of an uncaring universe. No, we were given birth and were loved into existence by our Creator, who continues to love us, so much so that our Creator chose to enter into this, our fragile, earthly home. Jesus came so that we could see ourselves in this new light, so that we could see our true identity and become who we were created to be: children of God.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. . . . and to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.

And who is this God of whom we are children? Can we know more about this God than the incredible glimpses we get in creation, the hints contained in this amazing universe in which we find ourselves?

“No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart who has made God known.”

God’s grace and wisdom, the creative power that made the heavens and the earth were born into this universe as a human baby so that we could come to know God. So that we could know that God is good and kind and compassionate. So that we could come to know that we are indeed children of God, made in the image of God, with God-given dignity, worthy of love and respect, loved and cared for by the very Creator of the universe. So that we could see ourselves in this new light.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.