Remember you are part of God's creation

John 1: 1-5

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.

Those first century Hebrew people who anticipated the coming of their Messiah (and not all did), had many competing views of who the messiah was expected to be. Although He was described in many passages of the sacred Hebrew Scriptures the teachings of the various schools of thought distorted the reality of who was to be expected. The scriptures were interpreted to suit the interpreter and their political position.  The Pharisees were expecting a religious fanatic, the Sadducees were political realists, the compromisers who would have the Messiah politicise Israel around them and overcome the power of Rome and the legalistic Pharisees.  The Zealots had war on their mind; theirs was to the pursuance of politics by that other deadly means. The masses were a fickle bunch; they were always up for a ‘meal and a miracle’ but when the push came to a shove they fell in line and seemed to prefer what they knew as to what was possible. They were others each with their own expectations and no doubt their own disappointments.  John, writing of Jesus and to many competing groups with the hope of revealing to them who the Messiah really was (John 20:31), takes his readers right back to the beginning; first things first, ‘remember how in this story you are created in the image of God’.  One of the reasons we fail to see the meaning and potential of our present situation especially if  the situation is not of our own choosing is because we fail to know deep down who we are created to be. In the act of creation God not only creates life but reveals that He in Himself ‘is life’. We should expect life from the God of the bible and His promised Messiah. We should have high expectations of God and the life He offers; this is why we were created.  The darkest running commentaries of our lives cannot destroy who God is and what he has created us to be part of.  According to John, life is created again and again in the coming of Jesus; renewal in the here and now; Jesus has come to restore us personally, socially, psychologically and environmentally to be part of the story of life (John 20:31).