Following the Trail of God's Promises: The 40-Day ChallengeSample

32. The Word Became Flesh

What does God, who is perfect, holy, just, almighty and seemingly so far away, have to do with my reality today and this suffering-soaked world?

As we approach Easter, we may be thinking about questions like, Why did Jesus have to die like that? or, How is it possible that He was resurrected? However, in order to talk about the crucified and then resurrected Christ, we must first mention His arrival. This is where the question, Where did Jesus come from anyway, and why? can help us.

God cares that we know this, so Jesus gave us the answers to these questions (John 6:38-39). But then we come to the way He came. For God, who is almighty, it is somehow appropriate that He resurrected Jesus. But my amazement - and in some ways a greater miracle - has always been the fact that the perfect God left perfection and came to an imperfect, sinful world and became like us. This is what today’s text tells us: The Word became flesh, the true Light, the Holy God became incarnate and granted that we see His majesty in Jesus of Nazareth.

God cares that we also know why (John 3:16). Therefore, the answer to the question that we started with is... He has so very much to do with it! God became man and lived in the same suffering-filled world with us in order to bring salvation, and to show that Jesus is the only Way to the place from which He came.