Beginnings
Seeking the Christ who made God's Word into living flesh.
Happy New Year! I’m glad you’ve decided to join in on this daily reading, reflection, & prayer.
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Beginning the year with these verses from John’s gospel is so fitting. Being that today is the 8th day of the season of Christmas is as well. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light.
January 1st is “just” another day to God. While celestial bodies like planets and moons circling and revolving is a thing of the divine, only humans make things such as calendars to make sense of it all. Nonetheless, utilizing something like New Year’s Day as a new start is not a bad thing. Any day is a good day to do the right thing. Might as well be this one.
Any day is a good one to recognize and embrace light, grace, and truth. What might that look like for you today? …this week? …this year?
John’s gospel has no birth story about Jesus. No journeys for Joseph and Mary, no angels singing to shepherds, no magi, or anything else prior to Jesus’ public entrance into ministry. But John sure does give us this powerful theological foundation for who Christ was and is.
And the likes of Christ - the Word - was God’s plan from the beginning. Things like Israel, or the Bible, or the Church - these are adaptations of God’s plan, a divine action in response to the development of creation (or lack thereof!). But the Word - the message of God from the beginning - this is the call for us yet again today. And it’s Christ.
In the beginning…what is… and what will be, for us, if we choose to participate fully in it.
John 1:1-5, 14
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word was with God in the beginning. Everything came into being through the Word, and without the Word nothing came into being. What came into being through the Word was life, and the life was the light for all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light. …
The Word became flesh and made his home among us. We have seen his glory, glory like that of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
Psalm 36:7-9
Your faithful love is priceless, God! Humanity finds refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the bounty of your house; you let them drink from your river of pure joy. Within you is the spring of life. In your light, we see light.
Prayer
God,
I am beginning this year grateful for your steadfast love that shelters and your abundant grace that sustains. You are the fountain of life, and in your light who is Christ, we see light. So thank you for the Word, eternal and present, who became flesh and dwelt among us—Christ, full of grace and truth.
As I step into this new day and year, help me to embody the same - your Word. May Christ shape who I am and what I do. So make me to embrace the light that shines in the darkness, in particular. Help me to your truth more clearly.
I pray for those who are joining me daily on this journey of reading the gospels to center life around Jesus Christ. Help us together to know him, which is to better know ourselves.
By your spirit & in Christ,
Amen.
How powerful where you wrote "in the beginning" as we contemplate this new day/year. It reminds me of an old saying, "today is the first day of the rest of your life" or something like that because each day we make a choice as to how we will live that day. Sure, there may be interruptions, frustrations, ect-it's life, but we decide how we enter into it and grow through. "Choose you this day whom you will serve." That is our choice everyday at every moment in different situations and circumstances. I'm getting off track! I'm a pastor-rabbit trails aren't foreign to some of us!😁 Point is in the beginning, this day, this new year, I choose to continue to be transformed to become more Christlike through participating in the means of grace and spiritual disciplines. I also choose to give myself and others grace when things don't go as planned or desired. I choose to be appropriately vulnerable and to be held accountable. I choose to make physical and mental health a priority and not just run myself ragged, trying to do everything by myself. "I choose joy in chaos and a peace that makes no sense." I choose Jesus! Always and forever, Jesus!!!! Happy New Year! Looking forward to this ongoing journey with all who participate here. God bless🤗.
To this day, I can’t read John 1:10-11 without getting tears in my eyes. I just always find this so tragic, now that I know. I sure hope I recognize Him when He returns!!!