God Made Known - John 1:1-18Sample

Read John 1:9-11

If you stopped reading at verse 8 and had to write what comes next in John’s Gospel, what would you say? It is amazing that the creator God, full of life and light, would come into our dark world. Surely everyone would be full of joy and wonder!

But John tells us that this is not what happened. As the light came into the world, He was not accepted, welcomed or celebrated. He was simply not recognised – in the original Greek that John wrote in, the word can also be translated ‘known’ or ‘understood’.

As Jesus came to His own people, they rejected Him. If we read on in John’s Gospel we will see this happening again and again. In fact, we’ll see that it is often the most religious people who are most against all that Jesus says and does. We might like to believe that by nature people are longing for the light and seeking God, but according to John’s Gospel, that’s not the case.

This is very challenging! It is difficult to accept that what Jesus says in John 3:19 is true: that ‘people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil’. We prefer to stay where we are rather than accept what God says about the darkness in our lives and our need for forgiveness. Yet without this truth the coming of the light, and Jesus’ death and resurrection are meaningless. Why would we need light if we are not by nature in darkness?