The Book of John is thought to be the last of the four Gospels written. The description of Jesus' birth is so amazing because it completely ignores the story of the virgin birth and what we focus on during the Christmas season. It also ignores the first thirty years of Jesus' life on earth. John, son of Zebedee, one of Jesus' Twelve Apostles, is considered to be the author of this Gospel as well as three epistles and the Book of Revelation. John gets to the heart of the matter and focuses a lot on the spirituality of Jesus and how Jesus is God.

There are a couple of theories on why John ignores the virgin birth. First, John did not know the story, so he elected to not write about it. Second, John wrote the book with the understanding that Christians already knew about the story of the virgin birth. I believe both can be correct. Since John focuses more on the spirituality, He digs right in and addresses a topic that many people struggle with ... the Holy Trinity. Also, since John elects to focus more on Jesus' teachings he just chooses to not write about the early years and pick up with what he more personally knows about Jesus.

For me, I appreciate John tackling the harder issue and starting off by telling us that Jesus was of God and was there from the beginning (John 1: 1-5). Many people struggle to understand the concept of the Trinity and some religions try to say that Christianity is not true because we worship three gods. However, that is not the case, and John addresses this. While I was not living during the first century, it seems likely that John's approach to writing this book came about because people at that time also struggled to understand the concept of God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It seems possible, to me, that John wrote this book to address some of the objections he heard about Jesus while trying to spread His word.

This conclusion is inferred as John addresses the underlying foundation of Christianity just four verses later in John 1: 9-13. Let's highlight verses 11 and 12 of this passage. "He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." John's directness is evident here as he is pointing out that the path to God is through Jesus. What is more apparent is that it shows that just believing in Jesus is not enough ... it is the door through which God invites us into Heaven.

This corresponds well to the Book of Revelation and the talk of a final judgment in which we will have to answer for our various actions and sins. We are not kept from Heaven because we sin, but there is also a difference in living a life where we believe in the existence of Jesus and truly LIVING as BELIEVERS IN JESUS. The first is just a mindset while the second requires us to want to follow God's word because it becomes our way of life.

During this Christmas season, while we worship the human birth of Jesus, we should take time to reflect on Jesus' sacrifice and how it did not start with His crucifixion. It began when the decision was made by God to leave Heaven and live life as a human. As John the Baptist says in verse 15, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.'" Jesus did live before us, but He also lived before all others, and just like John the Baptist, we are not the light or main character of our lives. We are here to bear witness to the light as Jesus should be the main character of our life story.