Grace Upon Grace made known
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What is the very best gift anyone can offer?
The best way to show love to another?
Not a letter sent from a great distance. Nor relayed through a messenger.
Not just a gift sent by amazon or even handwrapped and personally mailed.
The best way to show love to another is to give them yourself. Your time, your love,
your life.
this works as long as the other person wants you to be with them.. But when they don’t the love and the relationship break down..Or were never there at all.
This is the challenge in the Gospel of John..
God Showed us his love in as personal a way as possible. from God to man was a personal visit. Face to face..\
English Standard Version Chapter 1
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,
Something that had never happened before.
And there was a reason for that.. The unapproachable holiness of God and our sin could not be near one another.
Moses and God on the mountain
The glory of God was unapproachable.. His holiness so great that moses had to hid behind a rock so as not to be consumed by the glory of God. And still when moses came down from the mountain his face shown with a holy light.
But John makes a claim here that not even Moses could make.
English Standard Version Chapter 1
and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth
John is saying that they had seen the glory of God.. that Glory was the son of god sent from the father.. And that Glory was the perfect life that he lived.. I life of grace and truth.
And so he announces to us! God is made known in Jesus! God is with us.
This is why John the disciple quotes John the baptist at this point.
English Standard Version Chapter 1
15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”)
To show that unbelievable as this Idea is for hebrew ears the greatest prophet of the age affirmed christ’s divinity.
God was showing his love through a personal visit.
What is the content of his visit? What was his message for us?
The content of the message.
not an argument, not a warning, not instructions to do things right. or even to demand worship.
not just time spent meaninglessly.
Not even a story about how he created the world.
The content of the message is not static. To be thought about, read over and over again.
Here the content of the message that was jesus’ coming to show to all creation was glory God
a Glory revealed to us as never before.
English Standard Version Chapter 1
and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
So how do we understand Glory? bright lights and loud noises like the throne room of God in Isaiah? Or how about glowing halos of holiness like we see in the ancient art of the early Christians?
If you are not careful you could imagine Jesus spent his life with a golden halo floating around him at all times. But he didn’t!
His Glory revealed was much more beautiful than pyrotechnics and special effects.
God is glorious because of his character.. who he is.. and He is Holy, Just, loving, true, merciful, wrathful against evil, creative, faithful, Joyful and Wise .
And all of those Character traits were revealed to us through Jesus. Particularly through Jesus’ actions.
John who walked with him and talked with him said of jesus
English Standard Version Chapter 1
16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
John says that Jesus revealed the fullness of God.
Through two Graces
First in giving Moses the law. SO that people could know what God required of them. That was a grace of course that showed us what we couldn’t do. That the holiness of god was far beyond us. And Jesus was the only man ever who would keep that law. Who would so us what it meant live life a God intended it to be lived.
A life without sin would be a beautiful free song, flowing and delighting and without any broken melodies or wrong notes.
Jesus came as a man and fulfilled what we could not. He was true he kept the law perfectly.
|The second Grace that we see is the love that Jesus showed his disciples and the world in his life and ministry. In his teaching and in his death.
For Jesus’ obedience was more costly than mine could ever be, because he came to win us back for God. To take our punishment. His obedience took him to the Cross where all creation would see the wrath of God, another important aspect of God’s character, fall terribly on his suffering Son.
There at that moment John is saying the Glory of God was revealed. He sacrificial love was the most beautiful glorious action the universe has ever seen. God Gave himself up for the unrighteous.
The Nature of Jesus’ ministry was a personal visit from God himself. God with Us.
The content of the message was God’s Glory revealed through sacrificial love.
The last question we have to ask is why. Why did the word become flesh, why did he reveal God’s glory in the profoundly costly and beautiful way?
The Answer is here in John 1:18
English Standard Version Chapter 1
18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
God has made himself known. So that those who see him may give him Glory. and may see his offer of new life.
There is a conundrum in this passage. Not everyone who saw jesus knew him for the very son God. Remember he didn’t have a brightly glowing halo as he walked the streets if Nazareth. Even those who heard him teach and heal the sick and raise the dead were blind to the glory of God in their midst.
But to those whom God revealed his Glory come and demonstrated. They saw more than just a man, or a miracle worker. They were given the understanding to to believe that Jesus was son of God and to trust him to do what they couldn’t ever do on their own.
Those who with John saw the Glory of God made know a frail and fallen humanity they found hope and joy. Because in revealing Himself God had made them part of His story.
The Christmas story, the christian story is not our story but God’s story. God put on failing human flesh to minister and suffer in our midst. To perfectly fulfill the law of God. To show the profound love of God and to die a traitors death. All so that God could be proved just for forgiving us, a broken and selfish people and for adopting us as children and giving us new life in Jesus. It is a story of God making a family out of the worst sort of orphans, of Jesus taking a bride from the most unfaithful of women.
To believe this is true is to take your place in the story as the fallen and the forgiven. To call Jesus lord and to take your place beside the saints and the Angels who cry with wonder at the majesty and Glory of Jesus. For we have seen his Glory. Full of Grace and truth!