Day 2 | The Word
Sherrey Frew, author
We’re just a few days from Christmas, and we’re looking forward to celebrating Jesus’ birth. Yesterday we focused on verses from Luke’s Gospel. John, where we’ll read from today, takes a very different approach to Jesus’ introduction. The mood entering John’s account reflects beauty and majesty, harkening all the way back to the creation of the cosmos. While the other Gospel writers started their stories of Jesus at a historical point in Christ’s life, John invites the reader to the beginning of history — the moment of creation.
Rich with symbolism and meaning, the prologue to this Gospel reads almost like poetic literature. For the rest of the week, we’ll look at selections from the first eighteen verses of the book as we focus on the way John introduces Christ. We’ll consider two ways that John references Jesus in the first few verses of his Gospel: as the Word and the Light.
Read
John 1:1-5
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
Reflect
John draws us back in time, back to the beginning of the world, to the beginning of the magnificent story of scripture. Jesus, the Word, participated with God as the agent of creation. The Greek word for word, logos, means “speaking, a message or words” and would’ve connected immediately with John’s audience as a common word in Jewish wisdom literature and Greek philosophical teaching.[1] Here, John calls Jesus the Logos — the message of God’s hope, speaking to a world of people alienated from him and fractured by sin. The Logos has always existed together as God with the Father and the Holy Spirit in eternal, intimate community. The Word is and always has been the second member of the Trinity. What a powerful picture of Jesus.
As if challenging our thinking by referring to Jesus as the eternal Word weren’t enough, John offers us another image to ponder: Jesus is the Light. Over 2,000 years ago, the original Light slipped nearly unnoticed into the world as part of a rescue mission to remedy humanity’s eternal darkness. So monumental was the arrival of this Light that history broke into two parts: before the Light and after the Light.
It’s a myth perpetuated by the world that light and darkness are equally and eternally embattled with one another in a cliff-hanger where the winner conquers the other by a razor-thin margin. The light of Jesus does more than barely win out over the darkness. Jesus dominates. Christ’s light drives out the dark, causing it to flee. With Christ’s death and resurrection, the light triumphs in our lives now because of our relationship with Jesus Christ. We can live with confidence because of his victorious light, not needing to fear that the shadows will overpower and absorb us.
This Christmas meditate on the gift of Jesus. Creator. Word. God. Light. Now is the time to come to know Jesus. Right now, acknowledge your smallness before our God. He alone is good and perfect and true. Thank him for his forgiveness and for giving you the light to guide your way.
How could being reminded that Jesus is the Light who cannot be overcome by darkness give hope to someone who is suffering this Christmas? Is there someone you can share this message with this week? Maybe you need to hear it yourself.
[1] Edwin A. Blum, “John,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton; Victor Books, 1985), 271.