Day 1 – God moves into the neighborhood

Read John 1:1-18

God himself came on a rescue mission to save us. How amazing is that!

His mission is more than just showing up and getting a firsthand look at the problem around here, he came to provide a solution. He has made a way for us to become children of God if we put our faith in him. As Christians, we have heard the phrase ‘a child of God’ so often it has started to lose its revolutionary feel. We are adopted into God’s family! His family is perfect by the way, and you can’t just be born into it. Jesus has sought us out at great cost to himself to bring us into God’s family. We also are not the missing piece that makes God’s family perfect. We are more like the grumpy, whiner who spills the gravy all over his big brother and then says really nasty things to everyone. But Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice that we might be brought into God’s perfect family and have life as it was meant to be lived.

But let’s go back and figure out what ‘the Word’ means? From the passage it seems to be talking about Jesus but isn’t that a strange way to phrase it? The primary way that God communicates through his people is through his Word. All through the Old Testament we see prophets telling people “this is what God says” (thus sayeth the Lord) and showing what God is like. The people of God treasured the Word so much that they made sure that it was preserved in the Old Testament scriptures and made sure that their children knew it and studied it.

The Word is also the source of God’s power. When God was creating the world, he spoke the Word and it happened. John tells us that “all things were made through him” so the Word was a critical player in creation. But we also read that the Word was with God before creation, and that he is God and yet separate from God because he was ‘with God’. So we see that the Word is a person.
So here we see the Word is a person, the main channel of his life giving power and the way God communicates with us. Verse 14 tells us that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us!” Hold on, God (who is all-powerful, everywhere and eternal) became a man and lived on Earth?! That’s almost unthinkable! The Message translates this as “the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.”

Let’s pause for a moment and think about what our ‘neighborhood’ is like compared to Heaven, Jesus’ neighbourhood. Sometimes we have really bad weather on Earth, in Heaven it is always sunny. On Earth people sometimes don’t get along as well as they should, relationships tend to work really well in heaven. There is also no sickness or pain in Heaven, and on Earth well, we’re still working on that. I could go on but you get the picture. Our neighborhood doesn’t hold a candle to the one Jesus left but he came to our dark and dying world anyway. This is the best news because Jesus himself is light and life. He is the exact solution to our world’s big problems.

Questions for Reflection

• What do you think what it would be like for God to move into your neighborhood?

• Since Jesus is God’s means of communication and the main channel of his power, how does that change how you think about Him?

• How do you feel about being portrayed as the “grumpy whiner” who is adopted into God’s family? Do you think it is true? (Keep in mind the metaphor is far more in your favor than it biblically should be.)

• Does looking at the Christmas story from Heaven’s perspective shed more light on the story for you?

• There are many parts of this passage that I didn’t cover. What else can we learn about Jesus and the nature of his rescue mission?


stay tuned for Day 2 - Arranged Marriage...