And so the Living Expression became a man and lived among us!

1 John 1:14 (The Passion Translation)

REFLECTION

What does Christ’s birth mean to you? What does it communicate?

Promise? Hope? Wonder?

Spend some time meditating on how the birth of Jesus has changed things, and/or read over any devotions you may have missed this week.

Especially at Christmas, we picture Christ in that manger, we remember the birth, angels, shepherds and wise men; the terror of Herod and the joy of Mary. We celebrate the beginning of something wonderful. But it wasn’t really the beginning… Christ has been present since before the earth was created.

He is “In all things and through all things” Paul explained. John said, “In the very beginning God was already there. And before his face was his Living Expression. And this “Living Expression” was with God, yet fully God. They were together—face to face, in the very beginning. And through his creative inspiration this “Living Expression” made all things, for nothing has existence apart from him!… And so the Living Expression became a man and lived among us! And we gazed upon the splendor of his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father overflowing with tender mercy and truth!” (John 1:1-14 TPT).

“The Gospel writers are not really interested primarily in the facts of the birth but in the significance, the meaning for them of that birth, just as the people who love us are not really interested primarily in the facts of our births but in what it meant to them when we were born and how for them the world was never be the same again, how their whole lives were charged with a new significance. Whether there were ten million angels there or just the woman herself and her husband, when that child was born, the whole course of history was changed. That is a fact as hard and blunt as any fact. Art, music, literature, our culture itself, our political institutions, our whole understanding of ourselves and our world – it is impossible to conceive of how differently world history would have developed if that child had not been born. And in terms of faith, much more must be said because for faith the birth of the child into the darkness of the world made possible not just a new way of understanding life but a new way of living life.” Frederick Buchner, ‘Secrets in the Dark‘.

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