Dec. 16 - grace and truth
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)
Because Jesus stepped out from behind the sky and into his world, John is able to say “we have seen his glory.” Jesus revealed God to us. He emptied himself and became someone we could hear, see, touch, and know. People spent time with Jesus at the dinner table, laughed with him, cried to him, and were held by him. The unseen, eternal creator of the heavens became a man. To some degree we don’t have to wonder about what God is like because we were able to experience him up close. John, who was arguably closer to Jesus than any of his other followers, tells us Jesus was “full of grace and truth.” It’s interesting that John chose to describe Jesus this way.
Grace is the idea that God extends unwavering favor towards sinners who, in our shiniest moments, could never earn the extravagance of what God gives. By nature grace is surprising, unexpected, and borderline scandalous. That’s because we live in culture where people get what they deserve and nothing more. And to be full of truth means that Jesus lived by a clearly defined set of guidelines and was honest with people about parts of their lives that fell short of God’s vision for them. It’s speaking out a sense of what’s right and wrong. Truth demands things be made right while grace expresses itself through forgiveness. At every moment of his life, Jesus was both radically gracious and shockingly honest.
One of the occasions in Jesus’ life we see this grace and truth dynamic at play the clearest is in his interaction with a woman caught in adultery (see John 8). At the revelation of her secret life, Jesus responded in two ways. He freed her from condemnation, but also told her to “go and sin no more”. He loved and accepted her just as she was, but called her to step out of the sinful life she had chosen for herself. This is what love in action looks like.
As we examine our own lives, we tend to gravitate towards either grace or truth in our posture with other people. Grace-oriented people accept others unconditionally but have a hard time being honest with people about their failures out of fear of being rejected. Truth-oriented people are good at offering others a picture of how their life could be but tend to push people away over a lack of warmth and acceptance. Jesus had the remarkable ability to welcome broken people with tenderness while teaching incredibly difficult things that exposed deep places of sin inside them. He does the same for us.
1. Do you lean more towards a posture of grace or truth with other people? What made you think that about yourself?
2. Why do you think John wanted us to know that Jesus was full of grace and truth? Why might that be important?
3. Who is someone in your life that needs truth today?
4. Who is someone in your life that needs grace today?