The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
11 He came to his own,] and his own people did not receive him.
12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
As mentioned yesterday, when John says that Jesus dwelt among us, the word he uses is literally, that Jesus tabernacled among us. The beginning verses of John’s
gospel says great and magnificent things.
First, Jesus is the reality of heaven. He is the image of the invisible God. He brings to us the reality of the unseen world and comes crashing into the seen world
that we might be lifted above this one, and enter into the experience of heaven itself…free, without guilt…belonging to that reality, by God’s grace.
Second, Jesus is God in the earth. His presence, right in the middle of our wilderness experience. Just as God dwelt in a tent because His people were in tents…so
Jesus came in the flesh, because His people are in the flesh.
Third, Jesus tabernacling among us, teaches us the point of life, namely, the worship of God. The worship of our God, the coming up into heaven, was known in and through
the tabernacle, now is known in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is true that Jesus was in the world because of sin, he wouldn’t have been here except for sin…but in His destroying sin, He brings us to worship…He brings us to relationship, conversation,
intimacy with God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus’ coming was about worship…about the way in which we might be with God, both in this world and in the one to come. Do you see why worship is so serious? Why is it so important, why is it the fabric of our
living?
The pattern of the incarnation, of God’s coming down, was taught the church all the way back then! This is who our God is, a God who comes down to sinners, a God who
will literally leave His glory, that He might rescue His people…there is no inconvenience too great, no price too steep. John just ties it all together for us…This is who God is, and now, in the fullness of time, the ultimate coming down of God, the ultimate
tabernacling, as God takes on flesh.
The temptation might be to think, “Oh yea, the incarnation, we hear about this every Christmas time, I know all about that.” But do we? Do we see how important, how
life changing, in fact how everything else hinges upon this fact? Do we grasp that without this being true, we wouldn’t be Christians? Without what John is revealing here, there is no salvation, there is no hope, there is nothing, nothing but the dreadful
anticipation of the eternal judgment of God?
When you think about it, it is no wonder that so many find the Gospel and this message a hard thing to believe, for it presents us with claims that defy our understanding.
How can Jesus be God and man at the same time, but still only one person? But if you believe what we read in John 1:1-14, then all other questions answer themselves.
There are people who want to have Christianity but do not want to seem so intellectually inferior as to believe in a virgin birth…do not want to believe that God literally
became a man, and if they will not have this, they cannot have Christianity. Think about the questions:
How is it that the death of a Jew on a Roman cross 2000 years ago…has any bearing on my life?
How is it that this one and no other is the Savior of the world and that everyone is absolutely obliged to believe in Him and obey Him?
Am I supposed to believe all of those miracles he supposedly did? Am I supposed to believe that after such a horrifying death that He was resurrected? Surely no sophisticated
21st century mind believes all of this???
HOWEVER, admit that Word became flesh and tabernacled among us…admit the incarnation, Jesus the eternal God, becomes a man…takes on flesh and comes as a man, FOR man…admit
this, bow the knee to this and all of those other questions of doubt and unbelief lose their force.
If God is in the flesh, of course He could to miracles…If God is in the flesh then of course His words and works become that which dictates to all men and that all
men owe Him allegiance. What is so shocking about a virgin birth, if the one being born is God? And of course, death cannot defeat, cannot hold God!
This is what John is trying to get us to see, here is all of Christianity wrapped up in one simple statement;
the word became flesh and tabernacled among us. Believe this…live as though you really believed this and you will live in the reality of heaven, the reality of eternal verities, eternal plans, eternal love and grace.
John says to us; Can someone believe this, that God the Son, left the majesty of heaven for the rescue of sinners, who as John said, did not recognize or receive Him,
John says, can you really believe this and continue to live for YOU, or live for this world? John’s gospel shouts at us, NO! This truth and the world are incompatible. To truly know that God has come to the earth, taken on flesh, lived among us, so that he
could obey the law perfectly for us, and then upon Himself the punishment due you and me for our breaking of that holy law…
…if this does not change your life…if it does not change your thinking, your feeling, your actions and your reactions…with a gaze upward to heaven…then you really
must not believe this happened!
When the mist parts…and we sit before God and everything, all the circumstances and matters which seem to cloud our emotions and our sight, take their place in the
back…It is then, that I am convinced that this is the only thing we really DO believe…nothing else matters…nothing. No other truth owns us like this one does, that God came…He came down…He lived here, so that He might take us home. Ah…nothing owns us, like
that truth and we think we will just sit here, we will just stay in that reality, that love and we will be still. This is it. It is the only absolutely, important and luminous fact in all of the world and all of our lives. This is the fact by which all other
facts must be weighed, the truth by which ANY life, will at last, be measured.
Prayer:
Father, give my faith a sight and a holy remembrance of all that You have planned for Your people and all that Jesus willing took upon Himself that You may be glorified and Your people rescued from sin, death and hell. I am ashamed at how easily I forget
these holy truths and how callously I can live my life as though none of them were true. Forgive me, and lead me this day to rejoice in the salvation that You have given me and the continued work of Your Spirit, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Hymn: O Light than Knew No Dawn