Jn.1:14 – And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John was chosen by God to be an eye witness to the majesty of the Lord, that is what the entire gospel of John is about. He witnessed Jesus turning water into wine, multiplying the fish and the bread, walking on water, stilling a storm, healing blind eyes, causing the lame to walk, and even witnessed at least three people raised from the dead. John was the only disciple that actually witnessed the crucifixion, and was the first disciple to arrive at the empty tomb. But don’t you find it amazing that John starts his gospel with this, “In the beginning was the Word, the word was with God, and the Word is God…. the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory… That is what is was about for John, he saw the glory of God revealed in this man Jesus of Nazareth. Here is how Barclay describes this amazing verse.
“It might well be held that this is the greatest single verse in the New Testament… Here we come to the sentence for the sake of which John wrote his gospel. He has thought and talked about the word of God, that powerful, creative, dynamic word which was the agent of creation, that guiding, directing, controlling word which puts order into the universe and intelligence into human beings. These were ideas which were known and familiar to both Jews and Greeks. Now he says the most startling and incredible thing that he could have said. He says quite simply: ‘This word which created the world, this reason which controls the order of the world, has become a person, and with our own eyes we saw him.’”
So for most of us, including the disciples like Matthew, our first thought when we think about the birth of Christ we immediately go to Bethlehem. We think of angels singing, shepherds amazed, an animal stable, and of course Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. That’s not how it was for John, he was totally consumed with the eternal nature of the Son of God. Yes He was born in Bethlehem to fulfill scripture and was born of a virgin but to John the mystery went deeper. Jesus existed with the Father from the beginning, when He became a man everything changed.
