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“In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” —John 1:1

John 1 — A New Beginning for a New Year

John doesn’t ease us in gently. He doesn’t start with shepherds or angels or genealogies. He opens his Gospel with a thunderclap—a declaration so vast, so breathtaking, that it takes us right back to the very first words of Scripture: “In the beginning…”

Just as Moses began Genesis by anchoring us in the eternal existence of God, John uses the same phrase to make an astonishing claim: Jesus was already there. Before creation. Before time. Before light first pierced the darkness. Jesus wasn’t simply present with God—He was God.

John wants us to understand from the very first sentence that Jesus is not merely a teacher, a prophet, or a miracle-worker. He is the eternal Son, the second person of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—co‑equal, co‑eternal, and overflowing with divine life.

And that life is not abstract. It is not distant. It is not theoretical. Jesus is the One through whom everything came into being. Every star, every mountain, every heartbeat, every breath. Life and light flow from Him.

But humanity, the very people who received life from His hands, turned away. We chose our own path, our own wisdom, our own darkness. And into that darkness, Jesus did something so astonishing that John can barely contain the wonder of it.

God stepped into His own creation. The infinite became an infant. The eternal entered time. The Creator clothed Himself in the fragility of human flesh.

Jesus made Himself vulnerable—able to feel hunger, exhaustion, grief, loneliness, and rejection. He walked dusty roads. He shared meals. He touched the sick. He wept at gravesides. He lived among us not as a distant deity but as a servant, faithful and humble, pouring out love in every word and action.

John calls Him the Word because Jesus is the full and perfect expression of God’s heart. Everything the Father longs to reveal—His character, His compassion, His holiness, His mercy—is made visible in Jesus. If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.

And yet, tragically, very few recognized Him. The Jewish people longed for the Messiah, but they had already decided what He should look like—powerful, political, triumphant. Jesus didn’t fit their expectations, so they dismissed Him. The very leaders who studied the Scriptures most diligently were the first to reject the One those Scriptures pointed to.

But God was not taken by surprise. He sent John the Baptist ahead of Jesus—a voice crying out in the wilderness, preparing hearts, clearing the way. God even gave John the Baptist a sign so he would know the Messiah when He appeared. When the Spirit descended like a dove upon Jesus, John knew instantly: This is the One. This is the Lamb of God.

So John the Baptist did what he was born to do—he pointed. “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

Even when people questioned him, even when religious leaders tried to fit him into their categories—“Are you the Messiah? Are you Elijah?”—John kept pointing away from himself and toward Jesus. And when two of his own disciples heard him say, “There is the Lamb of God,” they left John immediately and followed Jesus. That’s the mark of a true servant of God: he rejoices when people move toward Christ, not toward himself.

And here we are, two thousand years later, and the same dynamic is still at work. Many still struggle to recognize Jesus because He doesn’t match the version of God they’ve constructed in their minds. He is too humble, too gracious, too challenging, too surprising. He refuses to fit neatly into our expectations.

But for those of us who have seen Him—who have recognized His voice, His beauty, His truth—we carry the same calling John the Baptist carried. To point. To witness. To say with our lives and our words: “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”