“In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.”
John 1:1-5 NLT
The first five verses of John’s Gospel are all about Jesus, and John set out the foundational truths about who He was, who He still is and who He has always been. Jesus is the Word of God. But there were many sceptics then and still are today, who struggle over the concept that a human being could also be God. People in those days saw a man who started life as a baby, who grew up as any other Jewish boy in a deprived area of Israel, and who spent years learning and applying carpentry, presumably following in his earthly father Joseph’s footsteps. Yes, they saw the miracles. Yes, they heard all that He said. But to be God as well? That needed a leap of faith, sadly beyond the reach of the closed minds of most people of His day.
John wrote that the Word, Jesus Himself, was eternal, just like God. He had always been, and was there when the world was created. In fact, John said that the world was created through Him. But it was God’s plan to bring salvation to the world He created, and that plan involved a Word who became a man. A man who lived and died and is now in Heaven, seated at the right hand of His Father.
Right at the start of John’s Gospel, we have a stumbling block, because nobody can go on to read, and benefit from, the rest of the twenty one chapters in John without accepting, right at the start, that Jesus was, and still is, the incarnate Son of God.
Father God. We pray today for the revelation that Your Son, Jesus, was, and is, both human and Divine. For those of us who may be weak in faith, I pray that You reveal Yourself to us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 