Project 119: Heaven and Nature Sing | John 1:1-18
| Project 119 | Amy Hirsch
Reading for Friday, December 25: John 1:1-18
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die,
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! The herald angels sing,
"Glory to the newborn King!"
-"Hark! the Herald Angels Sing"
I’ve been thinking a lot about birth these days, probably because I am quite pregnant with our daughter, Eliza Ruth. Lord willing, by the time you read these words, Eliza Ruth will be here and we will be celebrating our first Christmas with our baby girl. But right now, it’s the middle of the summer, the heat is unbearable, and my stomach seems to be expanding every day!
It’s hard for me to fathom that God incarnate put on flesh and came to earth. It’s even harder for me to fathom, as a pregnant woman, that He came into the world through a human woman’s womb. Take a moment to think about what we’ve read about Jesus in John 1. The Word of God, the One who was with God in the beginning, through whom all things were created—entered into our world in the same way as created ones, babies, do. Make no mistake, Jesus came into the world with His deity completely intact—fully God, and fully man, begotten and not made—and yet He “laid His glory by” to enter into the world, in a “divine condescension" that brought Him all the way down to the womb. He was nourished by Mary’s placenta, and around her twentieth week of pregnancy, she probably felt the kicks of God as Jesus’ small feet began to tap on her bladder.
The true light of the world, the one who called light into being, experienced the darkness of the womb. And not only that, but John tells us that He also knew the darkness of rejection. The world He made didn’t know Him. His own people didn’t receive Him. And on that fateful Friday at Golgotha, He would know the darkness of death as He faced the cross.
And yet this was the reason He was born—so that we might be born again. Jesus put on flesh and dwelt among us, so that we might be reborn, given “the right to become children of God … born of the will of God” (John 1:12-13 ESV), so that we might see the glory of God in a way no other human had ever experienced, so that we might know Him and have life in His name. Indeed, all glory is due to this newborn King!
Today, as you meditate on the Christmas story, consider the hope of the gospel—that Jesus was born, that He entered into our sickness and sorrow, that He knows what it is like to grieve, that He put on flesh, that He traveled through the birth canal—so that you might be reborn, and that You might know the hope of new life in Him.