Read John 1:1-14.
Lent is usually a time when people would have some space in their lives to think about God and spiritual matters, although in my vocation as a pastor, it would certainly please me more if people would think about God a little more often. Such as it is, I certainly think that this season of the year provides a good jump off point for some introspection about what we believe about God.
My starting point for some introspection about God is a little phrase at the beginning of the Gospel according to John that is very often ignored, but contains material that would strengthen any person’s foundational belief about who God is – and indeed, who He should be in our lives. This phrase in John 1:14 – “…and dwelt among us” – seems innocuous at first glance, but I’d like you to give it a long second look.
On the surface, the phrase refers to Jesus Christ being human. Here, the apostle John puts a spotlight on the biggest character in the Bible and allows you and me to immediately relate to Him, as there is at least one way we are similar to Him: He was human. This fact may give us some measure of comfort, a certain connection to Him. But the way I see it, Jesus being human only gains its deserved value if we understand that Jesus was also God to begin with.
The latter fact is so widely accepted in Christian circles, it borders on being absurdly blatant that I bet we don’t even give it the time and wonder it deserves. Jesus was God first before He became human! And this leads us to a lot of heavy, head-spinning realizations.
If Jesus wasn’t God incarnate, if He wasn’t who He claimed He was, the fact that He dwelt among us would have absolutely zero value at all. It would be like the apostle John was describing some regular guy who was born in Palestine over 2000 years ago, and he died at the age of thirtysomething. What benefit do we get from that? Absolutely nothing. Think about it – a lot of “regular guys” were born in Jesus’s time, maybe even grew up in the same town as Him, ate the same food, and inhaled the same air that He did, and their lives – if described in literature – would have no significant effect on our life and faith.
But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Jesus was no regular guy, and that truth has to be digested correctly by our brains so that the phrase “and dwelt among us” now truly becomes the amazing fact that it is.
It’s a bit like a famous Hollywood movie star choosing to live in your town and living next door to you. Having a new neighbor is pretty normal. We get new neighbors all the time, and we say hi to them if they’re friendly, or even be friends with them if it’s that kind of neighborhood. But if Robert Downey Jr. suddenly bought the house next to yours and started living there, that would be pretty amazing, right? This would be all the more spectacular and mind-blowing if you don’t live in a particularly upscale subdivision and nobody would expect one of the main stars of the Marvel cinematic universe to even be there, but he still chose to live next door to you! You’d probably be pinching yourself, and wonder at the fact that your neighbor is an Avenger.
This is the reason why the apostle John belabored himself in the first part of his gospel account, putting emphasis on this point: that Jesus was God, and He was God even before the beginning of time. In Jesus was the full sovereignty of God himself, and as Paul puts it, “in him all things hold together and have their being” (Colossians 1:17). What’s my point? All of this is just a long way of saying Jesus was God, and He didn’t have to come down to where we are. He didn’t have to come and live with us in this broken world – but He did.
He dwelt among us.
Jesus was God before time began, the all-powerful Creator God and the undeniable center of the Bible. You will have to believe the Bible for all this to make sense. If the Bible is not what it claims to be, if it is not the document describing the salvation of the human race, then the apostle Paul says that “we are, of all people, most to be pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:19). If we say that Jesus was just some regular guy, there will be no value in His life at all, and no value in Him coming down and living with us.
Lent is a season when we try to give value to God. The only way to ascribe value to the life of Christ – which I have discovered to be of infinite value – is only if we realize that He didn’t have to come here and live with us. He didn’t have to die for us – and yet, He did.
So what do you do when confronted with a reality like this?
If you are a person who doesn’t necessarily think about God too much, I hope that this will push you toward thinking more about faith. The Bible does not hold back on its claims about Jesus. And if these are true, don’t you think it’s worth it at least to see if there’s any value it can give to your life? I can promise you that this exercise will not prove to be a waste of your time.
If you confess to believe in Jesus, then this story – that He came down from heaven to live with us, and then die for us and our since – is the portal to falling in love with Jesus more and more. This is what makes Lent – the rememberance of the sufferings, the cross, and the ultimate victory of Jesus over sin and death – beautiful.
John Hofileña spends most of his time pastoring a young church in the heart of Manila, and he is passionate about discipling the younger generation. He is married to Kali, whom John describes as one “who can light up a whole room with her smile.” Given a choice, John says he would be living with her in a house near the beach – but there has to be internet, of course.
