Monday
John 1.1-2 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”
“Use your imagination”, says John. Now expand the range of your thought. Sure, Matthew and Luke take us to Bethlehem, a borrowed manger, and a crying infant. But what happened at Bethlehem was no accident. From before the beginning, God has been Creator and Redeemer, and all our scaled down Christmas images of stables, stars and shepherds are against the vast cosmic background of God’s eternal, creative purposes. John is alerting us – this is the most stupendous of circumstances! The One who comes to be with us is the very Word and Wisdom of God.
Tuesday
John 1.2 “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”
Now stretch your imagination even further, well beyond the usual boundaries of what you think you understand. The Creator becomes the creature. The One who made all things becomes in Jesus a “child in the manger, infant of Mary; outcast and stranger, Lord of all.” Nothing exists without the Word which calls everything into existence. As Paul said, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Col. 1.17) And yet, here he is, entering our humanity, “divinity dwindled to infancy”, the sustaining power of the universe made truly human, and entrusted to the care of a young mother. Advent eventually appeared at Bethlehem, but its origins lie deep in the heart of the Eternal, conceived by the faithful purposefulness of God.
Wednesday
John 1.4 “In him was life, and that life was the light of all humanity.”
Remember those grammar lessons when we learned how to write clearly and concisely? John uses the demonstrative pronoun, “that life”; specifically, particularly, uniquely, that life which was in the Word made flesh; that life and no other, is the light of life for all humanity. Indeed that life is the light of the world. Charles Wesley borrowed those metaphors: “Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings”. John’s whole gospel is like a composition through which the themes of light and life are woven into an intricate concerto titled “God so loved the world.”
Thursday
John 1.5. “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.”
Darkness cannot understand light; cannot take it in; cannot encompass it. Darkness can never put light out. Advent is the season of light…and darkness. The darkness is real enough; we can feel and see its effects when darkness is the descriptor we use for evil, cruelty, oppression, lost-ness, despair, grief, and all the other words we employ to describe the absence of light on the horizons of those who suffer and long for life to be different. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light”, says Isaiah, the herald of God’s coming. Advent is an anticipation and celebration of the great reversal, when light shines in defiance of the powers of darkness.
Friday.
John 1.9 “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”
Truth is another of John’s recurring themes. The true light is the light that cannot be extinguished, and which is neither suppressed by darkness, nor obscured by deceit. Advent is the celebration of the arrival of that true light – truth that exposes lies, and reveals the realities of the human heart. John wrote, “Everyone who does evil hates the light.” Advent is a time for honest review of what matters most to us, where our deepest loves lie, what when push comes to shove, we will give our best energies to. If we live by the truth, there is no fear in being near the light, or of being known for who we are. The closer we are to Jesus the closer we are to the Truth, and the Light.
Saturday
John 1.14 “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling amongst us.”
And there it is. The one liner that has provoked countless books on the incarnation of Jesus; all of them attempts to explain the inexplicable. The Eternal enters time, the Creator takes on creaturely form, Jesus lives and moves in our God-loved but fallen world, fully human and fully Divine. This wasn’t a flying visit, but the living of a human life in flesh and blood. John’s word ‘dwelling’ is about settling down, fully engaging with where a person is. This is God come amongst us in human form, with a name and a family. “Our God, heav’n cannot hold Him.” Advent flows from that!
Sunday
John 1.14b “We have seen his glory, the glory of the Only Begotten, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The glory of God is revealed in the One who is the most generous of gifts and who personifies the steadfast faithfulness of God to all His promises. The Word who became flesh comes as the promised presence of God with His people, and that presence radiates with a strange and beautiful glory. Advent is, for John, the dawn of a new creation, when He through whom all things have their being, becomes the One in whom life and light, and grace and truth, make possible the miracle of being born again by the Spirit. John’s great hymn to the Word, is the testimony of all who wait in faithful trust for the Advent of God’s glory in Christ, in our hearts, and i
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