This week we begin our readings and studies in the Gospel of John.
The series takes us through September and on to the end of November, when Advent begins.
As you will see from the heading the major theme we are following through is about Love – how John sees this as the principal motivation for Jesus as He meets all kinds of people. We shall encounter many different circumstances as we follow the story, but from beginning to end it is the story about the Man who Loved.
The readings this week set the scene for much of what is to follow, introducing various threads which will be developed as we read on in the weeks ahead.
v 14. So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
This is a very memorable statement about the character and person of Jesus. Many of us remember it in the form ‘full of grace and truth.’ John reminds us that Jesus was ‘The Word’ – part of the eternal Godhead Who spoke and the universe came into being. Read Genesis 1 and see how often the paragraphs begin with ‘Then God said … ‘ God spoke everything into being, and the God who spoke became human, experiencing the very life He created.
From the very beginning of this Good-News story about Jesus, written by John who himself walked alongside Jesus for the three years of His Ministry, the emphasis that he puts in his description of the God-who-became-man, is that Grace and Truth, Unfailing Love and Faithfulness, were evident in Jesus’ character. Jesus never gave up on His love for even unlovely people. When another translator uses the word Grace it stresses the undeserved nature of that love.
Shakespeare got the message about this love in Sonnet 116,
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is this lasting, unchanging, undeserved, faithful, Grace-Love of Jesus that will be the focus of our attention in these coming weeks of daily reflection
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