Reflection on John 1:1-18 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%201%3A1-18&version=ESV
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Entertain me for a moment.
In life I have had times of deep darkness. The darkness of sin, the darkness of covetousness, the darkness of indulgence, the darkness of death and pain. I’ve been in the presence of darkness and separation from God. You see, I like so many love the darkness. I’ve spent time myself at the gross, darkness of the cross of Jesus, knowing, in my heart, that I put Jesus on that cross with my sinfulness. I’m sinful and evil. I’ve seen the darkness of death and hell in my life. Deep, deep darkness that I have brought upon myself.
Yet in the midst of the darkest times, I came to realize the presence of God. I didn’t seek God, but rather God sought me. God hunted me down. God came out of time before me into my time. God broke into the midst of my darkness and hell to speak beyond my time, of a time in eternity. A time past, now, and forever into the future. God speaks in time and breaks through time and darkness to reveal the love and life he gives to all creation.
Jesus brought life into the world. Jesus brought life before the world and time, and during and after into eternity. Jesus is the source of all life and light. Jesus is the reflection of God’s glory. Light, Life, and Darkness are all spiritual realities. All exist. The Life of God enters history with the gift of eternal life into the present.
As God comes to me in the midst of my deep darkness, he freely pours his Light into me. God seeks to fill every crevice and space in my life with his Light. The Light is so intense, it sets off a fire in me that can’t be quenched. A fire that Christ daily feeds with the anointing oil of forgiveness and grace. God sweeps me up and overwhelms all senses of body and spirit. Even the darkness of the cross cannot overcome the Light which radiantly shines forth upon the resurrection of Jesus and his gift of new life and new Light.
God is spirit, so God came to us to show himself. God shows himself to us as Word and Light. The Torah… the Living Word of God has come in Jesus. And Jesus is born into time and space, God comes to me and to you.
Jesus’ light makes clear our human experience and destiny. Jesus born as God’s expression of himself to all people. God comes to tabernacle with his people and live with us as one of us.
And Jesus goes into time and space to reveal God’s eternal love on the cross. A Love full of grace and truth. Jesus brings God and man into a new relation.
Out of my darkness I take refuge in Jesus and live in the joy of his Light and the beautiful message he gives to me and to all who believe in him. God takes my senses from ear to eye. I can now hear and see through the darkness the Light of Christ. But seeing is different from believing. The abundance of God’s divine gift of Jesus, the Light, the Word, is never exhausted but is continually being renewed. Jesus made my fight against sin, death, the devil and eternal darkness, his fight. In Jesus battle, he frees me.
Daily God passes on some of his own nature and Light that I now come out of the darkness as something new and different and strange. I can’t change myself into what God wants me to be, but God changes me into what pleases God.
And suddenly there is someone beside me. That someone is Jesus, God in flesh and Word and Light, bringing me through life to life.
This message of darkness, light, word and life is for all the world. It’s not just mine. But it’s a message born into space and time in Jesus this Christmas for all people to see, hear, feel and to believe.
My wish for this Christmas Season is that all who believe in God’s saving grace and love through Jesus may let some of his Light shine in and through. For the Light is the central glory to behold in Jesus coming.
Thanks be to God that Jesus has come and will come again. Merry Christmas, my friends! May God dwell with you and in you… today… tomorrow… and forever. --- Amen
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