Gregory the Great famously wrote that Scripture is like a river shallow enough for a baby lamb to wade in while simultaneously deep enough for an elephant to swim in. Nowhere is that more true than in the gospel of John. In the same breath, John gives us both childish, giddy excitement about the good news and a rich theological dive into the transcendence of God. So in 2025, while Dr. Brooks’ weekday devotionals lead us through Genesis, join us on the weekends as we walk verse by verse through the literature of this rich gospel narrative!
How do you start a gospel? Where do you begin telling the story of Jesus? Mark started with John the Baptist; Matthew and Luke started Jesus' his birth, though they hinted that Jesus’ story really began as far back as David or Abraham or even Adam. But John begins before all of that—before God ever said “let there be light.” In the beginning, he was already there—and he was there with God—and he was in fact God himself, in full and perfect essence. This concept of eternality is the backdrop of every other story ever told, because it is God’s infinite time zone, and from it God creates and sustains and governs all else. That’s where we begin the story of this amazing man that walked the Earth with us. In the beginning, he was God.
Candidly, if we had the brainpower to comprehend the perfect, eternal life of God, that alone would be the greatest story ever told. But there’s also a secondary story: the story of humanity, and it flows directly out of God’s story! The Son of God’s inherent, perfect goodness is all the goodness we could ever desire or need. In the creator of all things, all things find their perfect joy and identity and fulfillment and purpose and every other good thing. Those do not come from the world. The Son of God alone, who dwells in perfect eternity, is both the world’s beginning source and its end goal.
Seminary professors will argue that every Bible lesson should end with a way to apply it to our lives, but I honestly think that’s sometimes not appropriate. Sometimes we just need a reminder that our primary focus should not be on our own lives, but on Jesus. We are not the main characters of our own stories; he is. When there was nothing else, there was God. John wants to draw our attention to him, because he deserves every bit of our attention and more. We could spend a lifetime contemplating only the divinity of the Word and never scratch the surface or grow bored. So why don’t we begin 2025 by joining John in doing just that?
