John 1,1-18 – Seventh day between the Octave of Christmas
“In the beginning was the Word.” John does not begin from the nativity scene, but from eternity. As if to tell us: even before our complicated stories, our falls, our successful or failed attempts, there was already a meaning waiting for us. Our life does not arise from chance, but from a Word. And this changes everything. December 31st is the day we look back. We make calculations, balance sheets, mental lists of what went well and what we would have liked different. But the Gospel today shifts our gaze: it does not ask us to start from what we have done, but from what God has done for us. And what he did was simple and shocking: he became flesh. He entered into time, into our confusion, into our wounds. Not to fix them from the outside, but to inhabit them from the inside. “We saw it, we touched it.” Faith is not a theory that explains everything, it is a presence that accompanies everything. It does not take away the darkness, but reminds us that the darkness could not overcome the light. It doesn’t say that darkness doesn’t exist, but that it doesn’t have the final say. And this is decisive at the end of the year. Because if we only look at what went wrong, we risk feeling defeated. If we only look at what went well, we risk deluding ourselves. But if we look at Christ, we discover that everything can be inhabited by Him, even what we don’t understand, even what still weighs on our hearts. “True light came into the world.” Not a light that blinds, but a light that orients. Not a light that judges, but that reveals. It reveals that we are not alone. That our life, even with all its contradictions, is a place where God has decided to be. Perhaps this Gospel asks us only one thing as the year ends: to stop measuring life only by results, and start reading it as a place of eternity. And this means that not everything was as we wanted, but everything can become a place of grace. Because in the beginning there is no effort from us. In the beginning there is a Word that loves us. And this Word never stops coming to look for us. Even today. Tomorrow too. Even in the new year that begins. Always too.
