John 1:1-5

John 1:1-5 
English Standard Version (ESV)

  It's fascinating to me that John doesn't have a birth narrative, and it's not because he doesn't start early enough, but rather because he goes back before the birth, before the Israelites, before God called a man named Abram into a new relationship, before a man named Noah became a boatbuilder, before Adam and Eve listened to their appetites, before all of that -- there was only God.
  In a way, my story and your story begin there, too.  In the beginning, there was enough, but God's generosity and love overflowed to create, and the same love that carved the mountains from the sea designed you and claimed you, and when it was clear that you were lost to sin, that love reached down and redeemed you at great price.  The Christmas story is a vital chapter in your redemption story, for when Christ came into the world, your salvation entered the human story.  As many have said, the author of the story fell in love with the characters and wrote himself into the story so that the characters might be saved and find their true love.  Augustine says that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God, and the Christmas story is a story of the heart's journey back to God, for that journey is finally free to be made due to the price Christ pays for us to redeem us, to win us back to our Creator. 
  So the beginning of the whole story is part of our story, a story that carries on into eternity, for the light shall forever shine, and the darkness shall fall away.