Bible Verse: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1
Scripture Reading: John 1:1-50
The Gospel of John is the fourth and final picture of Jesus’s life painted in the New Testament.
John’s picture is unique among the Gospel accounts—the last written and the most theologically profound (relaying not simply the events of Jesus’ life, but often their significance as related to His nature).
John’s purpose is not simply to offer a chronology of Jesus’s life, but, as he writes at the end of the book, “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God and that by believing, you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).
Despite John’s obvious differences from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, his picture of Jesus is integral to our understanding of who Jesus is, why He came, and what He did.
Unlike Matthew and Luke, who both begin their Gospels with a birth story about Jesus (Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1-2), and unlike Mark, who launches directly into John the Baptist’s and Jesus’s ministry (Mark 1:1-25), John takes his readers back to the beginning…of time.
In a passage reminiscent of Genesis 1:1, John places Jesus “the Word” with God, as God, at the beginning of Creation—not as part of Creation, but as the instrument of Creation, the Creator Himself (John 1:3).
The “Word” (logos in the original Greek) personified the concept of wisdom for John’s audience; in philosophically nuanced terms, John introduces the story of Jesus as the story of God Himself.
This week, we are going to read the story of God in Jesus through the Gospel of John.
Painted with the recurring themes of life and death, light and darkness, belief, and love (among a few others), John presents the “I am!” of Jesus, through whom belief and eternal life come.
Jesus as the Word who was God and who created all that has life in it (see John 1:4) is vital to grasp if we are to place our hope in Him for a life to come.
The One who created life has power over it, both for now (John 10:10) and forevermore (John 11:25-26).
Prayer: Lord of Creation and Life, thank You for the many presentations of Jesus You gave us in the Bible. Help me to see more clearly who Jesus is and what that means for and to me. Help me to be open to seeing You and Jesus more clearly through the words recorded in the Gospel of John. Amen.
Reflection: What is one of the more challenging pictures of Jesus for you that is painted in the Gospel of John? Why is it challenging? How have you engaged with that difficulty?
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