Grace and Truth

The story of the days of Jesus are chronicled in four different books of the Bible – we call them the “Gospels.” These four books are eyewitness accounts of who Jesus was and what He did. They are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Most of them begin in a similar way. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all start with an explanation of their purpose. Matthew starts with a genealogy of the family of Jesus. Mark starts his Gospel by saying, “This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Mark was a simple, obvious guy. I like him for that. Luke starts out his story by explaining how he interviewed different people and wrote out their details.

John is different. He starts his story of Jesus with a crazy poem. John is spinning a tale, and He begins with this vague, artistic, creative expression of what happened when Jesus came. Have you ever seen a movie that started with a crazy opening credits introduction before you get into the movie? That’s John.

The end of John’s poem goes like this:

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth…For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:14, 16-18).

This is the culmination of John’s poem, and truly, the essence of Christmas. This is what we’re celebrating throughout the month of December. This is what Christmas is about. God actually came here and walked around in flesh and blood. In Jesus Christ we experienced the glory of God.

The presence of God is the experience of love. In Jesus we understand once and for all that God really loves us. Look back at what John says about Jesus in verse 16: “For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”

More grace than we need; certainly more grace than we deserve. John says that the law was given through Moses, but in Jesus there is grace and truth. The law that God gave His people served one purpose: to help them see their need. While this law was effective in pointing out the need for salvation, there was no salvation in it. It only pointed out need. John says that in Jesus, we see the fullness of truth and grace. In Jesus, there is not only a recognition of our sin, but a pathway to forgiveness.

This is what Jesus brings to us at Christmas – grace and truth. In Christ we see the truth that we are indeed sinful people who have disobeyed God and are left holding the consequences. We understand that we have chosen our own way over God’s way repeatedly in our hearts and lives. When we look at Christ’s perfection, we see that we deserve death and separation from God forever. But in the same moment we understand that truth, we hear the grace of Jesus Christ.

At the same moment that Jesus highlights our real need for Him, He makes a way for us to be forgiven. He is truth and grace. In the same moment that we begin to see the state of our own sinful hearts, God makes a way for us through Jesus. That’s why Jesus came at Christmas, to pay our debt for us. Jesus came to exchange our sin for His righteousness so that we can stand before God clean, righteous, and accepted. This is what John is pointing out – it’s not only that God came to be with us, but there is a great love in his actions.

May we celebrate the reality that a God who really loves us has come, bringing truth, yes, but Grace. Grace upon grace.