Author: THERESA JACOBSON

Listening for the Promise
Sola Publishing – Weekly Devotions
Christmas Day – December 25, 2024
SOWeR Site — Weekly Devotional © Sola Publishing: www.solapublishing.com, 2024, written by Peggy Hoppes. Scripture taken from ESV Bible® (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright ©2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
(permission granted to active subscribers to reproduce this sheet for local congregational use)

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
- John 1:5 -
Light Made Flesh
Matthew and Luke tell us the Nativity story that is so familiar to us, with donkeys and stables, shepherds and angels, the story of Jesus’ birth from the point of view of the people who experienced it. We love the image of Jesus in the manger at Christmas and the image of the baby in Mary’s arms, but we are reminded that the baby came for a purpose: to glorify God in the most shocking and horrifying manner.  He lived and loved and served, but He came to die.
John focuses his Nativity story from the point of view of the Divine. Jesus was in the beginning, reminding us of the first verse of the Bible, “In the beginning.” God spoke and there was Light. That Light is the self-expression of the God who is, who was, and who will be forever. God revealed Himself as Light and then in flesh. Jesus is the Light revealed in flesh. Through Advent we have been waiting for a promise, the baby we celebrate at Christmas is the incarnation of the God who has fulfilled the promises of the Old Testament in Him.
The Word was made flesh and changed the world. We don’t always understand the things of God. Even the most spiritual people still live in the flesh and have daily trials and temptations to overcome. We live in a world that still knows the effects of sin and death, and we see the things of God as though through darkened glass. What we can know without a doubt, and live in faith and hope, is that Jesus is with us now as He has always been. He is Light shining in the darkness. The Old Testament and the New Testament witnesses agree: God is with us as He has been from the beginning. We can rest assured that through grace God will build upon that great and wonderful beginning, first as the Word made Light and then that Word made flesh for our sake.