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Advent Devotional - December 6, 2014

“Yea, Lord, we greet thee / born this happy morning /Jesus, to thee be glory given /Word of the Father / now in flesh appearing / O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord”

-O Come All Ye Faithful

Words. We speak lots of them every day. Some of them are consequential, some are trivial, and many others are somewhere in-between. But what about God’s words? From the beginning of the Bible to the end, when God speaks, power is unleashed. He speaks and sun, moon, stars, cattle, birds, and seas exist (Genesis 1). He promises and a people is born, called, and blessed for the sake of the nations (Genesis 12:1-3). His voice, the Psalmist says, is powerful and full of majesty, and in response His people cry, “Glory” (Psalm 29).

So, when Jesus is introduced in John 1:1 as “the Word,” we are prepared for glory, and glory is what we see. He teaches in the synagogue and listeners hear something markedly different, indeed Someone different who teaches “with authority” (Mark 1:27). He speaks again in John 5 and the paralytic of 38 years grabs his mat and walks away (John 5:2-9). And so it continues throughout the Gospels—at the sound of His voice a raging sea becomes as glass (Mark 4:39), the sick are healed (Luke 4:39), the oppressed are freed (Luke 4:35), and, yes, the dead are raised to life (Luke 8:50; John 11:43).

The apostle Paul said that the Kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power (1 Corinthians 4:20). Surely that is true of the King of the Kingdom. His words were never absent power. His speak was never empty. Why? Because, as the song rightly says, He is the Word of the Father, a Father who has been making things new from the very beginning. So come, adore Him! The Word has become flesh, and nothing will ever be the same.