Text: John 1.1-18
“The omnipotent, in one instant, made himself breakable. He who had been spirit became pierceable. He who was larger than the universe became an embryo…God as a fetus. Holiness sleeping in a womb. The creator of life being created…God had come near.” Max Lucado, God Came Near, pp.25-26.
This is exactly what the Apostle John, in his biography of Jesus, describes when he writes, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1.14).
Christ, as the eternal God, came to earth as a man. The word John uses that we translate as “dwelling,” is a word meaning “tabernacle” and would’ve reminded his original readers of God’s presence in that “traveling tent,” the place where animals were continually sacrificed to cover the sins of the people.
Because Jesus was God in the flesh, only he could pay the debt for our sin we owe to God. Jesus was the final, perfect sacrifice that satisfied forever God’s wrath against sin. No one else could meet the requirements to become the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.
By “coming near” to us, Jesus provided the only way we could “come near” to him. Today, as we rapidly approach Christmas morning and our celebrations of “God coming near,” memorize John 1.14 and use it to remind you of the One “who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
