A Second Genesis

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 all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.~ Johns Gospel, the opening from the first chapter


Advent Blog; Day 4

The Four Gospel writers have very different purposes from each other. Johns Gospel does not deal directly with the nativity. He starts a little further back than that. Johns stylistic opening is more than a nod to Genesis chapter 1, which starts, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". The refererence is deliberate. He is making it clear who Jesus is and the significance of his coming. In the same step he is declaring a new era, a new genesis.

This is such a rich subject and one I cant hope to do real justice to in  such a small space. I don't want to delve too deeply here into the divinity of Jesus, more to recognise the origins of the phenomenal rescue plan that is being hatched, here at Christmas. This is no Plan B. This plan has its origins in the beginning of time itself.

For us the journey seems to start with the annunciation to Mary of her impending miraculous pregnancy and even more miraculous baby. This is seen from the human side of a two way mirror. On the other side of the glass is the picture in John.

It does not start at Christmas for Jesus. This was always the purpose of the Godhead (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The mysterious nature of the incarnation is never explained (hence it's a mystery) but the "Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us". The eternal God inhabited a temporal human body. The Father required a champion to rescue and redeem his beloved creation. The Son loved mankind and he loved the Father. He left his home in heaven, at the Fathers right hand, where he had need of nothing and, as the song puts it "all for loves sake became poor". He did it out of love. There was no other way to save humanity from its sin, from the consequence of Sin. God the Son stepped up to the mark.
        
"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it". One version says the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not understood it. John also says, he came to his own and his own did not receive him....

"Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God."
 

This is about new beginnings. It's a new creation story to provide a narrative for the new creation, the creation of the new birth.  You see it is in Jesus that we were made, both in a natural sense and a super-natural sense. In him is the light of life. He is the source. As Colossians put it, in him all things hold together. We simply can not have too high an impression of Jesus. Truly God and truly man.

And so Jesus, 'being in very nature God humbled himself'. He stepped off of the throne, took off his kingly robes and woke up in a virgins womb. A new beginning for the Saviour meant a new beginning for those he would save. A second Adam in a second genesis means a second chance. A second chance for humanity and for you and I.