December 14, 2025
Watch or listen to this sermon here.
On Making
Allow me to introduce you to Sven. Sven lives at the end of our hallway in front of door 308. He has a little beard, a little hat, a little Nordic sweater and is a proud Fort Langley local. During the holiday season Sven gets a visit from our two young girls daily. In fact, Sven’s become something of a Christmas pen pal. The girls make him cards and gifts, delivering them in the hopes he’ll respond in kind, which he always does. Sven replies with his own little notes, drawings, trinkets, even the odd seasonal fruit or vegetable. Sven’s creator is our neighbour, Cat, a grandmother herself, who brought him into being and simply set him outside her door one day.
Making things with Sven has become another beloved ritual in our home as each year we gather up many Christmas traditions which revolve around making: making gifts for all our neighbours, baking and decorating cookies, wrapping presents, knitting, designing ornaments, making up silly songs and dances. In fact, it was ten years ago this Christmas I made a move and asked my wife out on our first date, and it was that very next Christmas one year later we made vows to one another on our wedding day.
Folks make things at Christmas. We make paper or popcorn chains, make time to help others, make a donation to goodwill, or make up a choir. Reflecting on the many traditions and special moments around Christmas leads us to a plain yet meaningful conclusion: Christmas is about making.
John 1
“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” I’m one of those who will argue that John’s prologue, though it may not appear explicitly “Christmasy” on the surface, is in fact responsible for much of our Christmas imagination and tradition. As first seen in the prologue, we derive from John’s gospel many grand themes which undoubtedly come to the fore at Christmas: light, life, glory, arrivals, receptions, home-making, and abundance to name a few. Matthew and Luke give us their versions of a historical nativity (with angels, shepherds, magi and the like), but John’s wider lens poetically sums up what’s simply hard to describe about Jesus’ arrival, character and purpose.
It’s preciously because of John’s poetic genius that, as we comb through all things Christmas, we find that even the most trivial of Christmas trappings have something of an origin point in John’s prologue. Take, for example, a homemade decoration plastered with glitter or tinsel by a child. When I see that ornament, I don’t see a poorly crafted example of gaudy excess, I see a glint of light reflecting in a dark room and feel hopeful as I’m inevitably drawn words later in John’s prologue: “a light sines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.”
Which brings us back to where we began: Christmas is about making, because making (and, spoiler alert, re-making) is what the central figure of Christmas is all about. But we’ll come to that in a moment. First, let’s consider what we hear in John 1.1-2.
Who is “The Word”?
In our reading we heard a figure described as “the Word”, and the writer, John is referring to Jesus. As Kirsten shared last week, John doesn’t refer to Jesus as the Word throughout his biography, but he does so here. Calling Jesus the Word points to the way Jesus reveals God to the world. A word communicates meaning. The Hebrew Scriptures were full of words that described the Lord God, but Jesus arrived as that living Word. As Kirsten said, Jesus is the Word for God, or as Jesus puts it, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”
What words do / Making
Now if you’ve spent any time in John’s gospel you’ll know we could go into much greater detail on why John calls Jesus “the Word” (there have been volumes written). But with even a slightly clearer picture of why John calls Jesus “the Word”, we turn our attention today to verse 3. Just one verse, but in the case of John’s prologue, it’s more than enough.
“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”
As mentioned last week, at the beginning of his biography of Jesus, John’s lifting some of the language and patterns we see in the Bible’s first book, Genesis. And in Genesis we hear that God spoke creation into being. Repeatedly we hear the phrase “and God said”. Simple but crucial to remember in Genesis, and therefor also in John, is that words make things.
The Bible is full of what we might call “speech acts” which often refer to wonders or mighty deeds which come about through someone’s words. We see the densest example of this with Jesus himself. In the gospels Jesus constantly uses words to bring various things about, because he carries more than mere human authority in his words. When Jesus speaks the natural world is ordered or reordered, chaos is controlled, people are healed or set free. Why? Because words make things. And though we know our words can make things, with Jesus, word-making happens through him on a cosmic level. I might be able to encourage someone or tear them down with my words. My words can make things happen, but Jesus’ words are different gravy.
As we read his gospel, John says that Jesus walked in a special authority not because he had a super-human knack with diction, nor a magical way with words. John intends us to see Jesus as he is, the very agent of creation himself. Jesus is himself the living Word, and when he moves things are made, unmade and change, because Jesus is and was the Creator God.
Part of what we need to understand here in John 1 is not only that Jesus was present at creation, but that he was the very means of it. “Through him all things were made” says John, and doubling down, “without him nothing was made that has been made.” Put that together with Jesus’ words to his disciples later in the same gospel and you begin to get the picture, “apart from me you can do nothing”. Is Jesus being hyperbolic, exaggerating his capacity? Not for John. If Jesus is the very one who brought all creation into being, then he’s reminding his friends that everything they have and everything they are originates with him alone. Jesus is the agent and sustainer of all of creation itself.
Words make things. So, when Jesus speaks, things come into being. This is part of what’s coming through in John’s prologue. Can we pause there for a moment? For many folks the prevailing image we have of Jesus at Christmas is of a be-hallowed infant in a pile of hay. And that’s fitting and worthy of reflection. But, with John’s nudging, when we begin to reflect on Jesus as the very origin of all creation, and not only a sweet baby in a manger, we start to sing O Come Let Us Adore Him with increased depth and reverence.
Later John will write, “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.”What a statement. Right from the off John’s not only telling us about how Jesus both was and wasn’t received in his time, but that phrase might give us pause too: “the world was made through him, (but) did not recognize him”.
It’s important at Christmas to see Jesus as he truly is, never reducing him to the size of a decorative nativity figurine. In fact, the reducing of Jesus into a cuddly cliché might be one of the dangers of Christmas. It is possible, as we read in John, not to see Jesus as he truly is, not to recognize him. So, before Christmas draws us to adoration, we must first begin with recognition.
It’s not a bad thing to enter Christmas with a question held in that famous carol: “what child is this?” That’s a crucial question to carry and sing this time of year. In all the Christmas hustle and bustle, have we presumed the answer to that question? Unboxing our nativity scenes from the bubble wrap or tissue paper, do we stop to ask? What child is this?
I say all that not to dimmish or dismiss nativity scenes or Christmas decorations. In fact, it’s John’s words about Jesus which often stirs up wonder when we find ourselves fully emersed in the season. John’s vision of Jesus, to be quite honest, messes with my head. I’m provoked to both keep Jesus’ scale in mind (he is the LORD of creation itself), but also how his arrival landed him in the thick of creation itself.
That’s both a baffling and wonderful reality on which to reflect on at Christmas. This is why, for instance, our home is filled with Christmas decorations which reflect the natural word. We stuff our tree with an abundance of creation (I mean we really stuff it), as a remembrance that the baby on the mantlepiece is the origin point for it all. Moose, tigers, geese, mice, bears, beavers, birds, oceans, rivers, lakes and all the luminaries. A felted star sits atop our tree so that our children, perhaps when they’re a little older, will put the pieces together. When they hear the lyrics “light and life to all he brings” in the carol, our hope is they’ll imagine a world not centered on themselves, but imagine a LORD Jesus within, beyond and over it all. Lyrics from Sufjan Stevens inspired by the prophet Isaiah comes to mind: “and the child with the star on his head, all of the world rests on his shoulders.”
“Without him nothing was made that has been made.” Before we rush to sing “Jesus paid it all”, we might stop to sing with just as much vigor and awe that “Jesus made it all”. And perhaps that reality puts our visions of Jesus’ payment on the cross into better context, and grounds us in some of the foundations of what we mean when we say the word “gospel” or “good news”. Part of where John will take us in the rest of his biography of Jesus is that what Jesus made, he loved, and what he loved, he gave his very life for.
What words do / Re-Making
That brings us to something of the main point of Jesus’ arrival and purpose. Christmas isn’t just about making, because Jesus made it all. Christmas is also about re-making. At Christmas, because of Jesus, we remember that God loved the world so deeply that he rolled up his sleeves to do for his creation what only he could. Jesus’ life, death and life again began creation’s great re-making and renewal. From the inside out, a light and life grew from Jesus which has only expanded.
So, we can both marvel at Jesus as the means of creation, but more so as the world’s saviour who has brought about new creation. Jesus makes and re-makes. Is it any wonder, then, why John starts where he does with Jesus, as rooted in Genesis? John wants us to see Jesus as the very one who put all life in motion, and who is pulling it through, even now, into renewal.
That’s one of the meta-themes of Scripture: because Jesus was born, lived, died and rose, a new creation project began. Because of Jesus, a new creation life is spreading through our world today as we wait for a great and final renewal. That’s it – from Jesus at creation to Jesus and new creation. So, for those of us learning to trust Jesus more deeply each day, Christmas marks the arrival point in the narrative, where Jesus began his re-creation and renewal project from the inside out.
Who is re-making you?
What does all that big picture stuff mean for us? Well, the truth is that if you’ve trusted Jesus you’re bursting with new life, a part of his new creation project. You’ve got the same Spirit in you which breathed life onto the earth itself. You’re pulsating with the same life of the stary pulsars. The source of life which nourishes the great trees on the mountainsides and pours out the mighty rivers into the valleys flows in you too.
Or, as the Apostle Paul write, the same Spirit which raised Jesus from the dead, also lives in you. What God made he loves, and what he loves he renews. And if you’ve not yet put your full weight of trust in Jesus, maybe this Christmas is a good time to give these sorts of questions more thought. Jesus holds endless life in abundance within himself, and his invitation was and is for everyone to trust him and receive life.
So, here’s a thought: when you see something sparkling on your Christmas tree this week, remember Jesus words in John’s revelation, not just as truth for today, but a promise for tomorrow: “behold, I am makingall things new” (Revelation 21). Our world sure needs it. Maybe closer to home, we need it. Are we not a part of that “all things” Jesus speaks of?
Christmas & Love
One of the common problems us humans have is that we tend often think of ourselves as the exception and not the rule. The speed limit mustn’t apply to me, we think. Surely they’ll let me return this item without a receipt, at least it’s worth a try. The problem, of course, with living as though we’re the exception to the rule is that we can also apply that to what we hear in Scripture about the state of our hearts or the depth of God’s love.
We celebrate Christmas because of God’s love, and Jesus is God’s love spelled out clearly in a life so glaringly influential we’re still talking about him today. This Christmas, take time to remember Jesus as he is. See him with clarity, as the Holy Spirit reveals. And as you do so, remember your place in creation. Remember who made you.
“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” That includes you.
Let me say it as plainly as possible: you were no accident, nor are you a waste of space, nor too far gone. You are loved exactly as you are by the one who made you. God has made you, and what God made he loves, and what he loves he re-makes and is re-making.
May you sense the kindness of God in Jesus toward you this Christmas. May God’s great love be made real to you like never before.
Luke Knight 