Collect: Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen
Collect for Advent (said daily): Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to life immortal, through him who lives and reigns with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.
Tuesday, December 8 ... John 1:1-8 This startling prologue to St. John's gospel is breathtaking in its magnificence. Jesus was God in the very beginning. Before the world began, Jesus was from everlasting the Word that was with God and was God. Before He was born in the Bethlehem manger, Jesus was the great “I am” (St. John 8:58). In this passage we learn many amazing things about Jesus. Jesus was the Word (1) Jesus was from the very beginning (2) Jesus created all things (3) Jesus was the life and light of men.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. 6 There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.
* How could Jesus be all these things and still be a tiny child born in a manger?
* How difficult do you think it was for people to look at the child born in a manger and understand that He was Immanuel, "with us God"?
* Read I John 1:1-3. Jesus the Eternal Life of God was heard, seen, beheld and handled by the disciples. How astonished do you think the Apostles were as they reflected on their experience with the Eternal Word? Where do we hear, behold, and handle the Eternal Life of God?
1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life— 2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us— 3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
* Jesus was also born in a manger, loved and nursed by his mother, fed and cared for by his father. How strange is it that God might be in need of such things! Yet He -- through Whom all things came into being ... , and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Whom was life itself -- came to visit us in great humility, He came among us as a child. This is all part of God's plan for saving us from our SlNS.
JSH+