The God Who Draws Near
Christmas is the answer to the deepest longings of our hearts, longings that have been carried since Eden.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
In the beginning, God created a good, good world. There was no pain or grief, no hardship or poverty, no loss or heartache. Even better, our first parents, Adam and Eve, enjoyed unbroken fellowship with their heavenly Father. But almost as quickly as the story began, it took a dark turn. In the shade of Eden, Adam and Eve doubted God’s good heart, and with the crunch of forbidden fruit, all of creation began to unravel.
However, God did not abandon humanity in their sin. Even as he was doling out consequences and judgments, he made Adam and Eve (and all of us) a promise. He told the serpent, later identified as the devil (Revelation 12:9), “I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15). With that word of judgment, God announced a Savior would one day be born, and He would deal evil a fatal blow.
And so, down through the centuries, the people watched and waited, looking for the one God had promised. But they were not left to wait in isolation. God spoke, giving his people instructions and making them promises. At one point, he also came to live with his people, taking up residence in the tabernacle as Israel sojourned in the wilderness, and later filling the temple in Jerusalem. But still the people waited for their Savior.
Jesus’ arrival was a new chapter in humanity’s story, to be sure, but it was also the fulfillment of all the stories the people of Israel had treasured in their hearts. And so, when the apostle John sat down to write his account of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, he knew just where to start.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). With that opening line, John ushered his readers back to the book of Genesis. There, God brought creation into being by his spoken word. John will introduce his audience to that Word, but first he wants them to consider that the Word is both God and also distinct from God. It won’t do to press them together too tightly, nor will it work to pull them apart. It’s just like a word that proceeds from your lips—it us both an extension of you and distinct from you. The Word is Yahweh, and yet the Word is with him. He is sent from God, and yet he is God.
All that brings us to John’s use of “the Word” to describe the Son of God. The prophets of Israel and Judah would sometimes describe revelation they received from God as “the word of the Lord.” (See, for example, Genesis 15:1; 1 Samuel 15:10; Ezekiel 14:2). As we read these passages, we commonly think God spoke to these Old Testament saints by a powerful impression or perhaps even with an audible voice, but that’s as far as we go. The “word of the Lord” in these instances is a message, nothing more.
But perhaps we’re wrong.
Consider Jeremiah 1:4–10. There, Jeremiah records, “The word of the Lord came to me” (v. 4). But then, a few verses later, the prophet tells us, “Then the Lord reached out his hand, touched my mouth, and told me: I have now filled your mouth with my words” (v. 9). A disembodied voice, no matter how powerful, does not reach out its hand and touch someone’s mouth. This “Lord” conveying divine words to Jeremiah’s mouth was God in physical form.
In John’s famous prologue, the Word is a message from the Lord. More accurately, he is the ultimate message, for he is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3). He came to show us what God is like, to silence any doubts about his goodness. That is why Jesus could say, “The one who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). But Jesus is more than a message. He descended to be born one of us. He is the offspring God promised to Eve in the garden, the one he said would crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:16). He is the God who “camped out” or “tabernacled” with Israel in the wilderness (for that is literally what the Greek word translated “dwelt” in John 1:14 means).
At Christmas, we celebrate the God who draws near, the Savior who came to earth to wipe away our tears, put an end to our grief, and make a way for us to come home. We praise the Word who put on flesh so that he could reach out and touch those he loves.
