What We Have Always Heard, But Will Never Fully Understand

John 1:12-13, CEB

But those who did welcome him,

        those who believed in his name,

    he authorized to become God’s children,

         born not from blood

        nor from human desire or passion,

        but born from God.

                We are still in the prologue of John and so we are still identifying the key threads that will be woven throughout the rest the gospel.  Today, we are introduced to the term “born from God.”  We will learn much more abut what that means as our journey through John continues, but for now, let’s focus on the truth that once we welcome what God has down for us in  Christ, something new occurs within us.  It might be more accurate to say that something that was already within us awakens, or born in us.  New life begins.  This new life has nothing to do with who our ancestors are, which is why John, unlike Matthew, seems uninterested in the genealogy of Jesus.  The new birth has nothing to do with even who gave physical birth to us.  This is why John seems relatively unconcerned with Jesus’s birth mother at this point. 

                This birth stems from faith in Jesus.  This is what we are invited to hear at this point.  Our relationship with God is beyond biology.  This may seem trivial to twentieth-century western culture, but to first-century Jews, it was a radical departure from what they had always heard in one respect, but a confirmation of what they had always heard in another respect.  The Jews knew themselves as God’s chosen people . . . God’s family if you will.  They were the children of God but now, other humans are offered the opportunity to embrace that same self-identity.  All of us can be “chosen.”  This is something new and radical .

                And yet, from the very origin of God’s chosen people in the time of Abraham, God’s purpose for choosing the Israelites is so that, through then, “all the peoples of the world will be blessed.”  Adoption of all to be God’s children to be “born from God” has been the plan all along.  Coupled with what we now already know about the presence of Christ at the very creation of the world,  this adoption of all has been the plan from the very beginning.  John is adamant that we see that truth.

                From the beginning of the world, God has desired that you be “born from God.”  As we’ll see, embracing this can be difficult.  So for now, I simply invite you to begin to reflect upon what that means for you.  You are invited to be born from God.

Question:  What does that invitation mean to you?  Have you embraced it?

Prayer:  Make me your child, Lord.  Teach me what that truly means.  Help me honor that identity with the way I live. Amen.

Prayer Focus:  Pray for orphans today.

Song:  No Longer Slaves – Zach Williams (Live at Harding Prison)