John 1: 1-18 reads like poetry. It is soft. Beautiful. Lyrical. Powerful. It pulls you in. It astounds you with simplicity and profundity simultaneously. And here in a passage that takes our hearts back to the very first verse of the Bible “In the Beginning God created…” we encounter both John the Baptist sent as a witness and Jesus, the Word, the One with God who came From God, the Word made Flesh. Powerful. Invitational. The word made flesh.
It is the most unique aspect of what occurred some 2000 years ago in Jesus Christ,
...that the One positioned forever at the Father’s Hand,
...that the One who was the Son and yet equal to God,
the One united to God by a love that was so tangible as to be a Person as well, the Holy Spirit,
...that this One, of the Three-One God, singular in purpose and fullness and identity yet triune in Person,
...that this One, this Son would come to earth, in an action so sublime and incredible and take flesh to live a life filled with Grace, be named Jesus by his step dad Joseph, and show us exactly what the character of God is like;
not only this, but that this One, this Jesus would come to live and die in order that we could truly live.
Unfathomable.
Incredible.
Marvelous.
Amazing love indeed.
An old Charles Wesley hymn says “contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man.”
This miracle shook the heavens and the earth. This miracle is our focus this Advent. Certainly the season does encompass not only that Jesus came, but that He comes yet again. But in the midst of that, we can be still, pause, reflect upon what this means for how we face life, the craziness of the holidays, the challenges of loss, the regrets of choices. How did the first characters respond, and how might we?
Don’t miss out by staying away. Don’t be cheated out of a blessing. Don’t stay away; come in, come be in worship, come seek the Savior.