I finished the book, “Jesus”, at a friend’s house in New Jersey a few days ago. In a remarkable way, Walter Wangarin Jr. tells the story of Jesus through the voice of His mother and best friend, John. The book closes with John writing these words:
I’ve walked with him. I was his beloved and bore no other name but that. I span his earth time by thrice as many years as his. And I know he knew the Beginning as closely as did the Creator – and knew the Creator closely too, more intimately than any parent and child by blood connected, know each other. Well, then: I cannot lay my pen aside until I’ve given expression to the mystery inexpressible, the timelessness and the placelessness of the Lord.
In the beginning
Was the Word,
The Word was with God,
The Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God;
All things were made through him;
Without him was not anything made that was made.
In him was life.
This life was our light.
And this light still shines in the darkness.
Darkness has not devoured it!
The true light approached the world,
Then came into the world,
But the world refused to know him.
Nevertheless:
To all who did receive him,
To all who believed in his name,
He gave the power to become the children of God:
These have been born anothen:
They have been born
Not of a woman’s blood
Nor of the will of the flesh
Nor of the whim of a hotblooded man,
But of God.
The Word. The Word. The Word.
Became flesh and dwelt among us,
Full of grace and truth.
I have myself beheld his glory:
Glory as of the only Son of the Father.
And from his fullness have we all received
Grace
Heaped on a greater
Grace.
For the law was given through Moses.
Grace and truth?
These came to us through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God.
The only Son,
Residing in the bosom of the Father -
He has made him known.
Some think the first verses of the Gospel of John were the words of a hymn sung by early Christians. How many songs about the Savior have been written since? As I was finishing this book, my friend Steve, a computer genius, came into the room, picked up his guitar and started singing a song I had never heard before. The song expressed exactly what my heart was feeling at the time. Isn’t it funny how God works? The title of the song is “You Gave” by Jay Stocker:
Lord, I want to be pleasing to you
In everything I do.
And I want to love you more,
More than yesterday,
More than words can say,‘Cause you gave your life;
You lived and died for me, for me.
You paid the price;
You sacrificed for me, for me.
And now the least that I can do
Is live my life for you.
So what’s the point of all the song-writing about Jesus from the first century until now? On our short trip, Susan and I went across the Hudson River to see a former student who lives in New York. She’s in her first year of work after college in a profession that has its ups and downs. The reason these songs about Jesus are so important is that they keep us centered on the things that matter – grace and truth. This world shows little grace and the devil hates truth. He is the master of confusion, deception, and discouragement. But Light pierces the darkness; Grace lifts our spirits; and Truth puts our feet on solid ground. Jesus would say the same thing to me that He would say to a young person in New York City or a computer whiz in New Jersey: “Keep your hope in Me! Your worth is not in your profession. If you are Mine, you are a child of God! That is who you are! This world may call you great one day and call you worthless the next. Your Father in Heaven does not treat His children that way. He sees you in Me and He calls you His own.”
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.” I John 3:1-3