“the Word was God” or “God was the Word”? Christmas 2019: 2 testimonies

On this Christmas Day, 2019, I offer the following 2 testimonies:

(1) John 1:1 and “the Word”
      Recent research of Luther's sermons turned up a Scripture passage in translation that is quite surprising to our English ears.  In the King James Version, John 1:1 is rendered

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

However in Martin Luther's Gospel sermon for the Third Day of Christmas, he preached on John 1:1-14 which includes the above passage (German text here).  So what was surprising in this? He begins with his translation of this passage from the original Greek, the last phrase being

“…and God was the Word.”

Oh!… just as with Luther's translation of Genesis 4:1, the proper translation of the original text is quite foreign to us English speakers. — If one looks through the 29 English translations of this verse on BibleHub, none of them renders this phrase according to the Greek.  Not even Beck's An American Translation (or AAT), which purports to follow the text more closely, renders it according to the Greek. Also the new WELS-EHV renders this passage like all the others, with no footnote. — You can check the Greek interlinear text for yourself  here.

      Luther then expounds this passage in his usual way, in the power of the text itself.  One can read this in an English translation of John Nicholas Lenker here, or in Luther's Works vol. 52, p. 49, or in McCain's A Year in the Gospels, volume 1, p. 124-125.  We highlight the following (emphasis mine):

“Since there is no more than one God, it must be true that God Himself is the Word, which was in the beginning before all creation. Some read and put the words in this order: ‘And the Word was God,’ in order to explain that this Word not only is with God and a different person but that it is also in its essence one true God with the Father. But [we do not permit ourselves to be driven away from the text, as if John had not known how he should arrange his words], we shall leave the words in the order in which they now stand: ‘And God was the Word’; and this is also what it means. Since there is no other God than the one, only God, and this same God must also essentially be the Word, of which he speaks, so there is nothing in the divine nature which is not in the Word. It is clearly stated that this Word is truly God, so that it is not only true that the Word is God but also that God is the Word.”

Well now, Luther preaches that “God Himself is the Word”.  I think I will call myself a "biblicist" and worship the Word, just as Luther, and C.F.W. Walther, and Franz Pieper, and the Old Missouri Synod. (For German readers, the German text for the above is available here and here.)
      Then we hear how these majestic words of John 1:1 relate to our celebration of Christmas today in John 1:14 –

“And [God] the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…” 

(2) John 8:56 – Abraham
      I received a Christmas greeting message from a correspondent who had bulk sent it to his mailing list.  It contained an image of Mary and Joseph, the baby Jesus in a manger, and the Star overhead. The attached message spoke of the prophesied coming of the Messiah in the Old Testament. That reminded me of Christ's words in John 8:56 –

“Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.”

Today is Jesus's BirthDay.  May we rejoice on this Christmas Day, as Abraham did in his day, with gladness.