And
the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, cand we have seen his glory, glory as
of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness
about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me
ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) For from his fullness we have all
received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and
truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is
at the Father’s side, he has made him known. (John 1:14-18 ESV).
The Apostle John is writing this book from which our reading has been taken to clarify who Jesus is. In the years soon after Jesus’ ministry, some people doubted that Jesus was actually God. They argued that he was merely a prophet, or a teacher, or perhaps even a person who was out of his mind. So here John spells out some important things. Jesus, the one and only Son of God, is fully God, and he came to live among us and with us.
In the typical church jargon,
we call this the incarnation: God came to live among us in human flesh.
The God of the universe came to be born as a helpless human baby, and he was
raised by relatively unknown, ordinary people in a small town in first-century
Galilee (cf. Luke 2). This child, Jesus, came to suffer, die, and rise to life
again for our sake. If the Christian story is a new story to you, you might
wonder why the almighty, all-powerful God would do this. Why leave heaven and
go to so much trouble for us? We might have expected God just to create the
world and then step back, leaving people to figure things out for themselves. Instead,
God became one of us because he loves us and wants to be in relationship with
us. Because he is God, Jesus could take our sins upon himself. And because he
became human, Jesus could redeem every aspect of our humanity. By his sacrifice
for us, Jesus cleansed us and made a relationship with God possible for us
again.
If this is a new
thought for you, I urge you to take it to heart and believe it. That becomes
your only hope of eternal life. However, if this is “old news” to you, please
spend some time today and celebrate this great good news. We certainly ought
not wait until Christmas to celebrate the coming of God in human form for the
sole purpose of redeeming His creation.
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