Normally at this time, we would be reading the Christmas story from the books of Matthew and Luke. The gospel of John does not give us the birth of Jesus and the reason is that John, when he wrote this letter, wanted his audience to know that Jesus is the Son of God and therefore, in reality, Jesus had no beginning and has no end.
The miracle of Christmas is that Jesus decided to become human and therefore Matthew and Luke explain to us how that event happened.
So although John does not give us the birth facts it is worth noting why John wants us to know about Jesus.
Yesterday we looked at the first chapter of John as John announced who he believed Jesus to be. This baby born in Bethlehem was no ordinary baby. John describes this baby as one who is in fact eternal and existed before time and space.
J. Vernon McGee, says I believe that God has put His fingerprints on everything—the Trinity is everywhere.” Then he explained what he meant. The universe is divided up into time, space, and matter. Can you think of a fourth? The very interesting thing is that time, space, and matter include everything that is in this universe as you and I know it. Then time can be divided into just three parts: past, present, and future. Can you think of a fourth? And what about space? Length, breadth, and height. Is there another direction? Also, there is in matter-energy, motion, and phenomena. Those are the three divisions of the three divisions. The universe in which we live bears the mark of the Trinity.
Perhaps you’ve never thought of God as a worker, but that’s how He first appears in Scripture. So John is saying Christ was in Creation. 1:3. This verse establishes Christ as the subject of creation and not the object of creation. He was the Creator, not the created. One scholar translates the latter part of this verse as follows: “and apart from him, not a single thing that exists came into being” (William Hendriksen, The Gospel of St. John, p. 71).
Christ was fully involved in the work of creation (John 1:3). In fact, all three persons of the Trinity worked together to bring the world into existence—Father (Gen. 1:1; John 5:17), Son (John 1:10; Col. 1:16), and Holy Spirit (Gen. 1:2; Job 33:4).
So John in his opening first two verses is saying that Christ with God 1 – 2
For me as much as I love to see the shepherds, Mary, Joseph and of course a baby in a manger I am always thinking in this season that Jesus is something different than any other human being born. He is indeed the creator of Earth.
Thank you, creator, for steeping into your creation and doing something about the mess we did not only to ourselves but to creation.
Forgive us for the way we have treated your creation and still do. Most of all thank you for saving the human race through Jesus for all who will put their trust in Jesus.