Reflect

How do you know who God is? How do you know what God is like? Christians affirm that our best way of answering these is a resounding “Look at Jesus Christ!” Indeed, it is in Jesus’ life with God, his ministry of love, his confrontation with, and triumph over death that we find our most complete understanding of God’s own nature. John the gospel writer waxes poetic on the subject, proclaiming that Jesus was with God at the beginning of time and shines so complete a light that there is no darkness that can overcome it.

Likewise, another John (the Baptist) also tells the story of his encounter with Jesus. He was sent from God to testify to the light, to witness to the Word made flesh through whom we have received “grace upon grace”—in other words, more grace than can be added up!

Of course, many did not recognize the Word when they saw him and so rejected him. But many did believe, and to them God gave power. As stewards of the truth of God in Jesus Christ we are entrusted with a sacred story, but not a story from once upon a time. We can add our voices to John the Baptist’s and point to the myriad ways in which the Word continues to dwell among us.

—Mark Brown

Questions

1. How might your experience help you testify to how the Word has been made flesh in Jesus Christ?
2. Who are some of the important “testifiers” in your life who have recognized and taught about how God may be known through Jesus?
3. How in your daily living do you yearn for the truth to be enfleshed?
4. What do you think the curious phrase from John 1:12 means: “to all who received him…he gave power to become children of God”?

Act

1. Invite a guest to speak at your church or with a group of friends about ways in which the Word continues to dwell among us.
2. Plan to keep a short diary each day for the next several weeks in which you write specific ways you see God’s eternal Word brought to life.
3. Try your hand at writing a poem that expresses an inexpressible truth. (That’s what John attempts in the first verses of his Gospel!)

Photo by Josh Boot on Unsplash