Driving from one end of the country to the other has some highlights and lowlights. Being in a ferry when you are getting seasick… then cleaning up the lad’s clothes in a hotel sink… not.
Buti’m thinking of the incarnation, and today’s passage is about this.
John 1:1-18
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
6There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
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. 15(John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) 16From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
Now, one of the things that is doctrine but missed by many is that the church is doing the work of Christ. We are, to the world, Christ. So we better be glorifying him, and in worship be reflecting him.
And this, more than the eucharistic theology of sacrifice, is why men should lead. It was the pattern Jesus had. It was the pattern of the apostles. We should simply be like him and do what he did.
OT, but I couldn’t put this on any of your posts about the Christchurch earthquakes, because comments are closed; something interesting happened during them; perhaps you can comment on the linked Herald piece at our blog, rather than here:
http://patriactionary.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/former-alabama-republican-gubernatorial-candidate-makes-future-neo-cons-with-lesbian-kiwis/
I’ll look over there. Last week there was a suggestion that Dunedin (no earthquakes, good port) shoulc become the gateway to the south island, not Chch. http://www.starcanterbury.co.nz/news/roger-sutton-recent-aftershocks/1235708/