11 Dec 2023

“That which was from the beginning….concerning the word of life – the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it” (1 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. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all people…..He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. …., to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John1: 1-4, 10-11, 12b).

These verses encapsulate the message of the gospel: they point to the divinity of Jesus Christ the Creator of everything that has been made (including you and me); they refer to the “incarnation” – God became man – and in Him was life (eternal) and light (which overcomes the darkness and evil).
And sadly, they also refer to the rejection of the ‘WORD OF LIFE” by the world and by his own; but the promise remains – to those who believe in his name (includes repentance, faith, and commitment), he gives the right to become children of God (members of God’s family inheriting the life and all the glory that belongs to this divine family).

This is in fact the true meaning of Christmas; it is the observation of what transpired years ago when all the above verses came to reality. Christmas is not X-mas (which many associate with santa claus, shopping, celebration, the exchange of gifts, feasting) without any reference to the Saviour of the world, who came as a babe to fulfil the mission of redemption and salvation for the fallen Adamic race.

He was not born in a palace (but in a manger, filthy and smelly); he was an ordinary worker (a carpenter); he grew up in favour with God and man; he taught like nobody else on the important issues of life and God (with great authority) that even shocked the religious teachers of the day; and he learned obedience to the Father by experiencing what suffering amounts to and involves in the quest to fulfil His mission that leads him to the cross.

We often restrict our understanding of the ‘word’ to the Scriptures and that is not wrong essentially; but the Word refers to Jesus, not just the Scriptures formally, but the message and content of the Scriptures, that is, the gospel concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the sum and substance of what God has to say to man. It covers the authority of the biblical Word of God, the greatness of sin, the graciousness of Christ, the vitality of faith, and the spiritual nature of the church. The “Word”, under God, must reform the church, beginning with the recreation of the new humanity under the second Adam, Christ Himself.