Embodying God’s Grace and Truth – John 1:1-18

A text – John 1:1-18

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being ⁴ in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.

⁶ There was a man sent from God whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸ He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹ The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. ¹¹ He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. ¹² But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³ who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. ¹⁵ (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ”) ¹⁶ From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ¹⁷ The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

A reflection:

Last week we had a peek at the beginning of this passage. Verses 1-5: Jesus is and has always been God’s Word or God’s logic or God’s way of speaking a thought or word into a creation. So Jesus was part of the act of the creation of the universe, whenever God spoke something into being: light, the Earth, everything that is (vs. 3”…without him not one thing came into being”). Then verses 5-9 are about John the Baptist, the one sent from God to aged parents, foretold in scripture and also by the angel Gabriel. His job in the gospel of John is to witness to Jesus, to testify to who Jesus was and what Jesus came for.

Now this week’s continuation of the prologue to John’s gospel, verses 10-18. John the gospel writer summarizes Jesus’s life on earth: He, this member of the Trinity, was born into the world and lived as a human being, walking upon the world he created and among the plants and animals he created, but humans did not know him. He came to the very people God had called out as God’s own, set apart, who knew he would be coming because of prophesies. These very people didn’t accept him. Mostly. But some did – when they saw his face, when they heard his voice, when they felt his love and compassion. They realized this is what God must be like – Jesus revealing the character of the Holy Trinity to human beings. And those people who accepted him, received him, believed him, to all of those people he gave power to become children of that same Trinity. That, says John, sums up Jesus’s earthly life among us.

Finally, John writes, God’s creating Word became flesh and “pitched his tent” among us. Jesus was God, overflowing with grace and truth, so overflowing that that grace and truth flowed from him and caught onto us. John says, “We got the law from Moses to keep us safe from one another and keep us focused on the right thing: living the life centered on God. And then we got grace and truth from Jesus. Why? So that we could know the very heart of the Triune God: grace and truth, see it walk around with us, and shimmer from Jesus right onto to us so that we know what the heart of God is filled with. John’s prologue gives us Jesus’s identity, his character, his mission, and his ever-lasting gifts to human beings. The rest of his gospel shows, in event after event, his ministry embodying exactly these things, God with us.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for Jesus and his life among us. Help us to understand that his love and compassion for all your children comes from your very heart, and that we can embody that grace and truth and love too. Amen.