Read John 1:1-18
The Vancouver Sun asked (on its front page, no less), “Who is Jesus?”
Answers fell along party lines.
Rabbi and Vancouver-based scholar Robert Daum affirmed his belief that fulfillment with God is found not through Jesus but through the Torah, the Jewish Scriptures.
UBC
Muslim Academic Seemi Ghazi said that Jesus is one of five prophets that began
with Adam, and included Noah, Moses, and Abraham.
Gary Patterson, Minister at St. Andrew’s Wesley United Church cautioned that when he is called the Lamb of God, the son of God, we need to take that metaphorically. Jesus is the lens through which God is illuminated... for Christians.
Roman Catholic Archbishop Michael Miller affirmed the historical Christian creed that Jesus is the eternal son of God who became flesh, truly God and truly man.
What’s your take on Jesus? People have tried to figure Jesus out since he came. People have tried to understand Jesus, and sometimes people have tried to
misunderstand him. We get in our own way sometimes. Our own biases influence us.
Genesis 1:1 opens with, “In the beginning.” In
John 1:1, we find the same words. John knows what he's doing. John
is making a clear claim about the identity of Jesus as creator, and it’s
central to the story of the gospel.
Because Jesus is God, he’s the creator of
light, of love, and of glory.
John provides us with one of the clearest descriptions of Jesus as
God in the New Testament. He affirms Jesus’ God-ness, and he identifies
Jesus with God’s "word of creation," when God spoke ("and God said let there be light") and it was ("And there was light").
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.
John 1:1-3
We can know the creative power of God’s light:
In him was
life, and that life was the light of men.
John 1:4
We can know the very glory of God, the creator of glorious creation:
We have
seen his glory, the glory of the One
and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14b
We can know the power of God’s love – the Bible uses
the term grace. Grace as used in the Bible is God's great and overflowing favor, extended free of charge. Think of it as unconditional positive regard on steroids.
We have
seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full
of grace and truth.
John 1:14b
"Who is God?" we ask. With Archbishop Miller, we can start by looking at Jesus. Because Jesus is God made human, he’s the creator of
light, of glory, and of love.
God is personal. God is knowable. Now what do you think of that?
Amen!
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