Thursday after Ash Wednesday (February 19). Not named… yet

Prepare to Listen.  For it is the God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
 
Prayerfully Read John 1:10-14
10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.  11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.  12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.  14And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
 
Prayerfully Wonder
He, (no name yet) was in the world.  He the Word, the light.  We wait for his name and so keep reading.  No mystery, however, about what the Word does.  For the second time John states that the Word created all things, that “the world came into being through him” (vv. 3, 10).  Sadly, the Word was unknown to the world.  John then jumps from creation to redemption, a brief version of the story of Jesus’ incarnation.  The Word came to “his own,” who did not accept him.  Not known by the world.  Not accepted by his own (the Jews).
 
The story doesn’t end there.  Another big gap is spanned as John jumps from the sad news of not known and not accepted to the good news of all who received and believed in him were given “power to become children of God,” born of the will of God.  Children belong, they’re not outsiders or slaves, they have all the rights and privileges of heirs.  Paul understood and thus taught, “you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir through God” (Gal 4:7).  Children live in freedom; nothing can oppress or enslave them; children inherit all the Father can and will give.
 
John returns to the incarnation of the Word, giving a theological statement rather than a birth story: “the Word became flesh and lived among us” (v. 14), as one of us.  The best part: “we have seen his glory.”  And what we see is “full of grace and truth.”  What do you see?
 
Prayerfully Respond
You have created me and opened the way to be born into your family, to be a child of God.  Thank you, Lord.  Help me live as one who belongs and is no longer enslaved.  Amen.
 
Live obediently.  Trust the Word who became flesh.