Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.
Today, we look at the Gospel of John.
The Book of John starts at the same place as the Book of Genesis: back in the beginning. Genesis says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” John says, “In the beginning was the word. . . Through him all things were created.”
In Genesis when God started speaking, his first words were: “Let there be light.” In John when God sent his word into the world, it says, “In him was life and that life was the light of every human.” Twice, God sent his light into the darkness..
And when God sends light into darkness, things happen! At creation, the darkness of chaos surrendered to the light of God. In John’s Gospel we expect a similar result. When God sent Jesus as light of the world, human darkness should be swept away and human chaos should surrender to the light and life of God.
But that did not happen. John says, “Christ the true light came into the world, but the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own did not receive him.” God sent Jesus to light up the world, but the world just shrugged and continued in darkness.
What went wrong? Did God’s word lose its power somewhere between Creation and Christ? When God sent Christ, was he too weak to turn on the light in a way that would get noticed? The new beginning in John’s gospel suddenly feels like a bad Hollywood sequel. The original movie was great. but the best thing about sequel was munching on popcorn.
John explores this problem in his gospel. He tells stories about people who met Jesus, but they thought the new light was just a bad reflection, or they thought Jesus was just darkness in disguise. But John also tells stories about people who saw and responded to the new light.
Let’s pray.
Our father, we rejoice in the light of each new day. It reminds of that first day when you said, “Let there be light.” But we wonder why the light of Christ does not transform our lives. Why are there so many dark corners the light doesn’t find? Why do our character flaws and habits not change in all our years of being Christians? As John said, The light has come into our darkness, but the darkness does not understand it. “Christ came to his own and they did not receive him. But to those who did receive him, he gave the right to become children of God” (Jn 1:12). Yes Jesus, we receive you again. We receive your light. Light up our lives with your presence, expose our darkness and drive it away. May today be our day of new creation and new light.
Amen.
I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.
Pray with Me 