Scripture Reading: John 1:1-18
The first three Gospels begin on the earth; the fourth Gospel begins back in eternity. There are no sublimer words in all language than the first words in John’s prologue. They give us a glimpse of the eternal past and show us the Word existing then. In the beginning, before anything else was, He was. Genesis is the book of earthly beginnings, but this first verse of John’s gospel carries us back far beyond Genesis. We find precious comfort in human friends when we can rest in their love and know that they are indeed ours, true to us and faithful. Yet all the while, as we lean upon them, we know, too, that they are only creatures of a day. They have not lived long, and their wisdom is only inexperience, their strength only weakness. Their love is liable to change and decay, their very life is only a breath, a mere comma in the great sentence of eternity. But in the friendship of Christ we know that we are in the clasp of One who is eternal — the same yesterday and today, yea, and forever.
We are told also plainly who this divine Friend is. “The Word was God.” A word reveals thoughts. We cannot know what is in our friend’s heart until he speaks. We never could have known what God’s thoughts about us are if He had not spoken to us. Jesus Christ is the Word, that is, the revealer to us of the mind and heart of God. The Incarnation of Christ rings Him very close to us. In His human life He is one of ourselves, our brother, with feelings, affections and sympathies like ours. But when we can add to our thought and experience of Christ’s humanity the wonderful truth that He is divine, it puts a marvelous element of strength and security into our trust. The Incarnation is God coming to us with a great heart of love, offering Himself to us. A great preacher says, “In the last analysis Christianity is nothing more or less than a great dear Figure, standing with outstretched arms.” God is love, and it is Love, yearning, searching Love, that comes to us in the Word.
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