Read: John 1:10-18 NRSV
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.”’) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
If we were to continue our reading of John as if we were beginning a play, the next few verses might be what we would expect to hear from the Chorus, a dramatic device that was used to foreshadow, explain, and amplify the actions and feelings of the characters involved in the main action. (Think of the opening lines of Henry V, where the prologue introduces the audience to the warlike King. We know in advance that we’re about to hear of mighty deeds.) Verses 10-18 tell us what happens to the Word made Flesh before the story even begins: we know that the world will reject him, but that he will ultimately perform a great service, something even greater than justification through the law of Moses. This is the backdrop to which the opening action is set. Now we know what kind of story we are about to hear. We will witness the mighty deeds of a hero, a son of a god.
It’s also important to notice that John’s introduction to Jesus doesn’t begin in Bethlehem with the magnum mysterium, the great mystery of animals watching the newborn Christ-child. Instead, John’s beginning is the beginning, the start of all things in which Jesus was with God. While Jesus is fully God and fully man in all four gospel accounts, John chooses to focus on the divine origins of Christ instead of the virgin birth, or the genealogy of Jesus back to David. Both are stories of incarnation, (the word made flesh), but where the synoptics start with a baby and reveal the God, John starts with God and reveals the man.
And with that, the stage is set. We know the characters, the background, and have an idea of the direction of the play. Now the action begins.
