Dave's Diary

As we enter the last few days before Christmas, our lives can become so busy that we lose sight altogether of the reason for our busyness – the gathering of God’s people to celebrate the “Feast of the Incarnation” – known more commonly as Christmas. So let us make time today to read and re-read what is possibly the greatest Christian text underpinning our belief in the incarnation – that is, that the Son of God took on our humanity and dwelt among us. And then, having read it, let’s take time out during the day simply to ponder this great mystery of our faith.

Daily Reading: John 1:1-14

The physical, material cosmos as we know it came into being because of God’s creative self-expression – i.e. His Word. He spoke, and there was all that is. He created all things by and through His Word. And then, in the fullness of time, God’s creative self-expression (i.e. His Word) took on flesh and dwelt among us, revealing God Himself by “putting flesh and bones on God”. Jesus, born from the womb of the virgin Mary, was God in the flesh. Jesus was God revealing Himself to us in our frail humanity.

¹⁴ 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.

No wonder Jesus would later say, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Jesus, God the Son, made God known to us in a way that no previous written word of the Old Testament had ever done, because Jesus was the Word of God living and moving and breathing and speaking and acting among us. If we want to know what God’s character and will is, there is no better place to look than to Jesus.

The very real challenge with which this confronts us as His followers is this: As someone indwelt by the Spirit of Jesus Christ today, how might I live my life in a way so overflowing with grace and truth that I may better reveal the character and will of God to all those around me?

Prayer

Lord, please fill me with the Spirit of Christ today, so that I might have the grace to live in a way that reveals Your love, grace, mercy and truth to everyone I meet. Show Yourself to others through me today, I pray. And to this I humbly dedicate myself. Amen.