It felt so good to read this chapter. Like a cool breeze on an autumn day, reading these words refreshed my soul. Judges was a long journey and Ruth an encouraging account… but my soul longed for words of life and that’s what I received this morning.
The opening verses are so rich I just want to print them here. Verses 1-5, 14:
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 men. … The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The chapter began with this marvelous description of Jesus and then rolled on explaining the mission of John the Baptist and on to Jesus calling his first disciples… breathtaking, invigorating. This is Who I worship and follow. This is Jesus.
Interestingly, it was verse 29 that fed my soul the most this morning. John, upon seeing Jesus, calls out, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” I don’t think the significance of this description would have hit me like it did had I not just finished reading Judges. I still think about the meditation I wrote, “how low can it go?”; the ugliness of human life and the disturbing images of the last chapters of Judges. Sin wreaks…
Over Christmas I spent a few days in
Apparently neither education nor technology nor any ‘human advancement’ has removed, dare I say can remove the stench of sin from our lives…
And then came John’s comment about Jesus: "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
Oh, Jesus, You are the answer for my woes, my stench, my sin! You and You alone can take away the sin of my life. Jesus I surrender to You… do what You must in my life to bleach out the stench of sin in me…
O, Lord Jesus, how refreshing this prayer is… O, Lord Jesus, how cleansing this prayer is…
Amen.
Some Background about John’s Gospel
John was one of the "12" and one of the closest friends of Jesus, as well as of Peter. John's gospel is very different from the other three gospels. It was the last gospel to be written, probably late in the first century. John assumes that everyone knows the facts about Jesus' life, so John chooses to concentrate on interpreting the meaning of Jesus’ life. The goal of John, in writing his gospel, is “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:21).
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