John: The Grand Miracle

Perhaps you’ve heard this story before.  It is a story of a man who did not believe in Christianity or its Christ.  The story takes place on Christmas Eve many years ago.

On this particular night it was snowing hard and the winds were blowing.  There was to be a midnight service at the church to which his wife and children belonged, and she urged him to join them for this night of special worship.  “No, you go along,” he said.  “You know how I feel about religion.  I just can’t buy that story of the Virgin and her child.  I simply don’t believe that God came down to earth as a man.  You go on to church – I’ll wait up for you.”

So off to church his family went, and he sat down by the fire and began reading his newspaper.  Suddenly he was startled by the sounds of thumping on the large picture window in the living room.  He thought for a moment, it must be snowballs being thrown by the neighbor kids.  But the sounds persisted.  So, he went outside to see for himself what was going on.  And there – in the snow and cold of that winter night – he saw a small flock of birds huddled together beneath his window.  They had lost their way in the storm and flown against the window toward the light and warmth of the living room.  “Now, there must be a way to help these birds and get them out of the cold and show them to a warm place.”  Then he thought of his barn.  Yes, if I could just get them to the barn, they could have some warmth and be protected from the wind and snow.

He quickly made his way to the barn, threw open the doors and tried to shepherd the birds toward it.  He tried every way he could think of to convince these little birds that he meant no harm and was only trying to help them.  But nothing he did solved their problem.  Every time he approached the birds, they’d scatter.  “How can I help them?” he thought.  “If only for just a few moments, if I could become a bird and talk to them – show them they have nothing to fear if they would just follow me.” “If only…”

But just then, off in the distance, he heard the church bells caroling the birth of Jesus.  And right then and there it hit him.  And he sank to his knees in the snow.  That’s what God did for us:  God became one of us in Jesus, to show us the way.

God became one of us to show us the way.  That’s the miracle of Christ’s birth.  That’s the miracle of the incarnation.  And that’s the miracle every single person on earth needs today.  And the Apostle John recorded this miracle for us with these words:      The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testifies concerning Him. He cries out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because He was before me.’” From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another.  For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.

So this morning, I’d like to walk through this miracle with you, the miracle of the incarnation: the miracle of God’s grace poured out to us – when Jesus became one of us. So, If you brought your Bible, let me encourage you to find John 1:14-18, where John unpacks for us four miracles of God’s grace that are found within the Grand Miracle of the Incarnation.  And the first miracle is this:

He Came to Be One of Us: The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.  This statement is one of the most significant and memorable ever penned.  The Eternal Word of God who existed in an intimate relationship with the Father, left the glories of heaven and took on flesh so He could live with us as one of us.  Now, what I love about this image of the incarnation, is the term John uses to describe what Jesus did to become one of us.  He literally took on flesh.  This term “flesh” refers here to physical, human life.  This term “flesh” speaks of the whole person. Jesus took on a human body just like ours.  A body that would need to be nursed.  A body that would go through puberty.  A body that would experience human existence in all its frailty, all its vulnerability, all its weaknesses, and all its temptations.

And when Jesus did this, when Jesus became flesh, he did not become any less divine. When He was born, He was not part man and part God; He was completely human and completely divine.  And what’s so profound is this act of self-humbling to become one of us was a completed action.  What that means is that once Jesus took on flesh; there would be no going back upon the incarnation.  Jesus is now and will evermore be God in the flesh. Jesus is now and forever just like us.

The writer of Hebrews describes for us why He became one of us. He writes: For this reason He had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because He himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted. Hebrews 2:17-18

So, Jesus became just like us in every way.  He was fully human in every way, except that he has never sinned.  And from this verse we see two implications of Jesus becoming like us that are full of grace.

First, Jesus knows what it’s like to be you.  He knows what it’s like to be alone.  He knows what it’s like to be misunderstood, to be weak and vulnerable.  He’s experienced hunger, thirst, grief, pain, abandonment and rejection.  That’s why He is sympathetic to our struggles and our temptations.  In fact, no other religion in the world can offer us what we have in Jesus.  No other religion in the world offers the sympathetic presence of God sharing in our human plight.  Jesus knows what it is like to be you.  He knows the hardness of life, the cruelty of life, and the sorrows of life.

Secondly, Jesus was able to become our sin offering. His coming to be like us directly addresses our need for salvation.  The coming of God in the flesh does not save us in itself.  But it made it possible for Jesus to offer himself as your substitute and take into His flesh the penalty your sins deserved.  That’s the miracle found within the Incarnation – God became one of us, so He could do for us what we could not do for ourselves.  Jesus became one of us, so He could die for us to reconcile us to God.

In fact, there are two miracles within this first miracle of the incarnation.  Jesus came to be one of us so He could know what it is like to be human so He could identify with us in our time of need.  And Jesus took on flesh so He could take away our sin.  That’s amazing grace.  But that’s only the first miracle.  Let’s now look at the second one described here:

He Came to Be With Us  The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. I want to focus on this word, “dwell.” This is a very meaningful word.  This word “dwelt” can be translated, “pitched his tent.”  So, this picture of God coming to be with us is an instant reminder to the Jewish nation of how God had come to dwell in their midst in the wilderness.  He came to dwell with them in the tabernacle.  Now within the tabernacle itself was the most holy place.  It was in this most holy place where God came to meet man.  That’s the miracle of the Incarnation: God became one of us so He could be with us.  God came near us so we could experience Him personally. No longer would God be distant.  No longer would God be unapproachable.  I love how Eugene Peterson translates this verse: “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.”

I love how David Metzger describes God coming to be with us.  He says, “The Word gets down on all fours, descending “far beneath His loftiness,” lisping and speaking baby talk so that we little children can understand.  And the Word doesn’t just speak with lisping words but with deeds.  In fact, the Word is deed.  The Word doesn’t do drive by evangelism.  He stops, stoops and stays with us, showing us that His love for us is not just talk.”

So the miracle within the Incarnation that we see here is this: God became one of us so He could be with us. That’s what you do when you love someone.  You do whatever it takes to be with them.  You drive a thousand miles to be with them. You hop on an plane and go half-way around the world to be with them.  You don’t settle for a letter or a phone call or facetime.  No, you go the extra mile to be with them.  And that’s what God did for us.   The Bible says we would not seek Him, so He came to us.  He initiated the relationship.  God is truly a relational being.  In all other religions, their gods are impersonal or just some cosmic force or even a mystical state of nirvana; not so with our Creator God.  He is a personal being who came to His own created beings so He could be with us.  That’s the miracle within the miracle of the incarnation.  Jesus  came to us so He could initiate a relationship with us. And once Jesus initiated that relationship with us, we see the next miracle of the incarnation, and that is this:

3. He Came to Bless Us Listen now to how John describes his relationship with Jesus:

We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because He was before me.’”  From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another.  For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

To understand the blessing found in Jesus, I need to briefly unpack four terms for us.

The first term is “glory”  Now one could not think of the Tabernacle in the Old Testament without being reminded of the glory of God.  The glory of God was the visible manifestation of God’s presence with man.  But what did they see when they saw God’s glory?  In Exodus 33:19, after Moses asks God, “Please, show me your glory’ God says, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you…  Then as He passes in front of Moses in Exodus 34:6, we read, The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

This is what John proclaims that he saw in Jesus: The presence of God’s goodness in the midst of His people.  In other words, when you see Jesus, you see God’s goodness.  And one of my favorite definitions of God’s goodness comes from A. W. Tozer, who writes, “The goodness of God is that which disposes Him to be kind, cordial, benevolent and full of good will toward men.  He is tenderhearted and of quick sympathy, and His unfailing attitude toward all moral beings is open, frank and friendly.   By His nature He is inclined to bestow blessedness and He takes holy pleasure in the happiness of His people.”  A.W. Tozer

God’s inherent nature is goodness.  He is not just good, but He is goodness itself.  It is His essence.  It is His being.  He is infinitely good, eternally good, and unchangeably good.  He can never be less good than He is.  All the goodness there is in any creature has been imparted from Him. It’s what makes Him kind. It’s what makes Him merciful.  It’s what makes Him full of good will toward men. It’s what makes Him sympathetic and tenderhearted toward us.  It’s what makes God predisposed to love us, bless us, and pour out His grace to us beyond measure.  This is the beauty of God’s goodness seen in Jesus Christ, who is full of grace and truth.

But not everyone could see His glory.  As we learned last week, many did not recognize him.  To them, Jesus was nobody special.  But to those who were close to him, they saw that he was indeed the Son of God filled with glory – filled with grace, filled with kindness, compassion, love and faithfulness.

You know, too often we accuse the disciples of being slow to understand Jesus, but much of the time they were simply stunned and astonished by who it was they were observing.  Jesus was simply more than they could absorb.  After all, they were seeing all the goodness of God in a person.  And sometimes seeing all His goodness was more than they could handle.

So then, we now see that at the core of the goodness in Jesus is “grace” Jesus is full of grace. This term is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word ‘loving-kindness.’  That means that at the center of Jesus’ heart is a superabundant supply of loving-kindness. Jesus is an endless, abundant fountain of grace that cannot be contained. It’s this grace that moved God to create you in His image.  It’s this grace that moved God to call Abram, to bless Him and make Him a blessing.  And it is this grace that moved the Father to send Jesus to die in your place, so you could become part of God’s family forever.  That’s the miracle within the incarnation:  When Jesus became one of us, He came to bless us with an outpouring of grace that will never run out.

But it’s not just grace He’s come to bless us with.  Jesus also blesses us with truth. Jesus is full of truth.  When you see Jesus, you see truth.  You see the genuine article.  When you come to know Jesus, you come to know the truth.  Everything about Jesus Christ centers around His loyalty, fidelity, faithfulness and dependability.

In a nation where most marriages stand a 50% chance of making it, Jesus remains faithful.  In a world characterized by ever changing philosophies and morals, His truth stands firm.  In a world of uncertainty, Jesus is someone you can be sure of.  He is totally reliable. You can always depend on Him.  He will never leave you nor forsake you.  He will always be there for you.  Jesus is full of truth.

Now let me add the final word.  That word is “fullness” Verse 16 says: From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another.  Out of the superabundant supply of grace that is Jesus, He continually lives to bless us with grace and truth.  That’s what fullness means.  God’s grace to you in Jesus is continuous and will never run out.  His grace can never be interrupted and has no limit.  That means whenever you need grace from Jesus you will have it.  There is no sin He cannot forgive.  There’s no one too far gone, He cannot rescue.  That means He will never give up on you.  And that means He also has so much in store for you.  That’s the miracle within the miracle of His incarnation: GOD’s GRACE FOR YOU WILL NEVER RUN DRY!

Are you beginning to see why C.S. Lewis called the incarnation, The Grand Miracle?

Jesus came to be one of us so He could be just like us, but without sin.

Jesus came to be one of us so He could offer His life for us.

Jesus came to be with us so He could initiate a relationship with us.

Jesus came to bless us over and over again with His grace and truth

But there’s one more miracle still to go, and that is this:

He came to make the Father known to us No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.  John 1:18 Wow this last verse loaded with nuggets of truth.  First, Jesus is called “God the One and Only.” If there were ever a clearer declaration of Jesus as God, it’s right here.  John is saying to us: “Make no mistake, this Jesus, who is the glory of God incarnate; this Jesus who is full of grace and truth, this Jesus, who is at the Father’s side – this is the One who is God, and He has come to be one of us to show us exactly what the Father is like.

And so Jesus: “has made Him known”  Jesus has come to narrate God to us.  That’s what this verb means. It means to narrate or explain.  In other words, Jesus came to tell the story of God. Or more precisely, Jesus came to us to give us a full account of the Father.  He’s held nothing back.  When you read this Gospel – when you hear him speak, He will speak the Words the Father has given Him to speak.  When you see His works, He will do the works the Father has shown Him to do.  And that too is an amazing miracle within the miracle of the incarnation. For now, when you look at Jesus, you can now know God.  You can know Him personally.

And that’s what’s wrapped up in this final phrase, “who is at the Father’s side.”  For this phrase gives us an amazing picture of intimacy Jesus enjoys today with the Father.  For this phrase portrays the Son as a child in a close dependence on His Father – enjoying a close and warm relationship with Him.  Literally, he is in the bosom of the Father.  So, with this one last image, we see the last miracle within the miracle of the incarnation, and that is this: With Jesus coming to be with us, it is as if God reached into His very being and plucked out His own heart and sent His heart to be with us.  That’s the miracle of the incarnation.  In giving us Jesus, God has given us His heart!

And all He asks of us is to put our trust in the One and Only Son, who has made the Father known to us:  This Jesus who became like us to die for us.  This Jesus who came to be with us so He might see His glory and receive His blessings of grace and truth.  This Jesus, who became one of us to show us the way back home.  That’s the miracle of the incarnation.  That’s the miracle of Christmas. That’s the miracle of Jesus.

Do you need the miracle God gives?  More Particular, do you want the miracle God gives?  For the good news is you can have this miracle by receiving Jesus Christ today.