URC Daily Devotion 9th May 2025
St John 1: 29 – 34
The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’
And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’
Reflection
The primary purpose of John’s Gospel is to set out the ultimate story of how the creator God acts in his beloved creation and how the Genesis accounts have their fulfilment in the cross of Christ. It seeks to explain how the one true God can be both remote and detached from the world but also intimately present, caring and personal within it.
The actual baptism of Jesus is recorded in all the Synoptic gospels but only alluded to in John’s gospel (1.19-28); a figure gaining much tantalising public attention but refusing to claim any of the offices the Temple functionaries were eager to ascribe to him. In humility and greatness, John retorted, “I’m only a voice”, adding “Well, that’s what I saw, and I’ve given you my evidence: he is the son of God.”
The overwhelming vast majority of people throughout history and alive today believe that there is a Creator and a God especially today due to the discovery of the sheer complexity of DNA and the double helix structure of DNA, with its symmetry, purpose and exacting specifications, requiring an intelligent cause. The intricate laws of the universe supposedly created by a single, functional protein – the first spark of life – that first cell – from nothing – as the materialists propose – is for me untenable – rather, they manifest the Mind of God. John the Baptist would have known nothing of this but in Jesus, he foresaw something much greater than a mere Messiah. When we’re with Jesus it’s as though we are already in one of the “many rooms in his Father’s house.”
When my wife of 45 years passed away in October I had a deep feeling of incredible pain and hope simultaneously as I held her hand. She was no longer in that lifeless body but in an inexplicable way, and only through the teachings of Christ, I knew that she was safe and that one day we shall meet again.
Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, for whom no one is last, no one is lost, no one is less, give us a passion for all who are still to come home to you, that they might discover their true belonging in the eternal company of the welcoming, creator God. Amen