Thursday, April 18 - John 1

THE WORD
   For thousands of years, the Israelites had focused on the WORD of promise.  It began after Eve sinned, when God spoke the WORD that a Savior would come who would crush the head of the Serpent (Gen. 3:15).  It continued as God clarified to them, throughout the Old Testament, who this Messiah would be.   The prophets spoke, events transpired that prefigured Jesus' coming, people and places pointed forward to Him. 

   But it was, primarily, a WORD of promise upon which the Israelites built their hopes and dreams of salvation.  They couldn't see Him, and yet they believed that one day He would indeed be born of a woman, born under the law, so that He could save us.

   In Christ, the WORD of promise becomes reality.  The WORD becomes FLESH and dwells among us. (John 1:14)  In the incarnation of Jesus we see a God who is not only faithful to His WORD, but also who is able to accomplish the impossible.  How can God become a man?  How can the immortal take on mortality -- the omnipresent be localized?

   But He does it.  And He does it because the depth of His love and commitment to us in bigger than we can possibly imagine.

   What this says to us is that our God is not a who is God far-off, distant, impersonal and indifferent to our needs.  He isn't just a God of WORDS.  He is a God whose WORDS mean something -- whose WORDS took shape and form in the person of His Son.  And He walks beside us in our journey, with real flesh and real blood.

   He felt our pain, experienced our struggles, knew the anguish that we go through as we wander through this "vale of tears."  He shed those tears too.

   But His presence is the key to victory, because, in the end, His WORDS of life will blossom into reality, and we will reign with Him forever and ever.