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On The Upper Room Discourse Re-Release For Lent 2024

Advent 2018 Devotional—December 3

PRAY

“Speak Lord, for your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3:10).

READ

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through him, and without him not
one thing came into being. What has come into being in him
was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines
in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

John 1:1-5

It is early morning and I’m staring at a blank document on my computer wanting something to happen. The curser on the screen blinks insistently at me, daring me to type the first word. I hesitate because there is so much I want to say and I’m searching for the right word. I check my online Thesaurus looking for the word. Without words I can’t tell you what I’m thinking or feeling. Without words I am silenced.

The first line of John’s Gospel jumps out speaking, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Ah yes! Jesus is the Word! Jesus is called the “Word” because it is the essential nature of God to express and reveal Himself. The Phillips New Testament aptly translates John’s opening words, “At the beginning God expressed himself.” From the other side of the Creator-creature divide, the infinite-finite abyss, the Son of God comes to us as the Word. He is not just a word; He is the Word!

A few lines later we read in John’s Gospel, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (John 1:18). Before Jesus came, people could only guess about God. They would, as the apostle Paul said, “search for God and perhaps grope for him” (Acts 17:27). But Jesus so perfectly reveals God to us that He can say, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9b). And, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

Strikingly, John draws on the Greek term logos in calling Jesus the “Word”. Logos is a rich word, a complex word, meaning both “word” and “reason”. Ancient Greeks conceived logos as ultimate reality, the meaning and logic of human existence. They saw logos as the rational principle pervading the universe, keeping everything going. However, for them logos was an impersonal, dispassionate force governing all things.

What good news, what incredibly good news it was for the ancient world to learn “who” the Word, the logos, really is:

For centuries you have been thinking and writing and dreaming about the Logos, the power which made the world, the power which keeps the order of the world, the power by which men think and reason and know, the power by which men come into contact with God. Jesus is that Logos.” (William Barclay, The Gospel of John, Vol. 2)

Albert Einstein looked at the creation and exclaimed: “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.” (Antonina Vallentin, Einstein: A Biography) Better than most, Einstein was able to see into the rational, orderly, coherent nature of the universe. It was not random! The comprehensibility of it all was incomprehensible to him! He saw fingerprints of the divine Logos who makes the laws of science work— the same Logos who makes you and me work!

Jesus the Logos, is the Alpha and the Omega of it all, the beginning and the completion (Revelation 22:13). “All things have been created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:16b). We look out on a coherent, purposeful and meaningful creation heading towards the perfection of God bringing all things together in the Word. For it is God’s “plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).

Did the Bethlehem shepherds know whom they worshipped in manger straw? Did the wise men know as they knelt before Him? The angel choir knew! Oh, they knew! They had come from heaven’s throne where the Christ was worshipped: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Revelation 4:11).

I am no longer sitting at my computer trying to find the right word! I’ve got it! “Come!” Come let us adore Him, Christ the Word, Christ the Lord!

PONDER

  • How do I see Jesus as the Logos, the governing power in the universearound me?
  • What does it mean for me in my everyday life that Jesus is the “Word”, or the perfect expression of what God is like?

PALMS DOWN/PALMS UP

For a moment hold your PALMS DOWN in a symbolic gesture of letting go to God your worries for the day, the busyness of the season, and expectations of the way the holidays ought to be. Release all of these concerns to God.

Next, hold your PALMS UP as a symbolic gesture of receiving God’s gifts, provision, and guidance for today.

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