‘HD God’
Many now have High Definition (HD) television and enjoy its quality images. Christmas reminds us that God went ‘HD’ 2000 years ago. The human race was privileged to see him in high definition – as Jesus, the quality image of God.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, HD God was inaugurated: ‘The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being’.
Listen to this startling statement from the apostle John: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God … The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us’.
John is saying that Jesus is God in the flesh; God revealed in the clearest form ever, as a man. He continues: ‘We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only, who came from the Father’.
Ours is an age of uncertainty and subjectivism. People wonder, ‘How can I be sure of anything?’ The message of Christmas speaks right into this uncertainty – there is a way for us to see God’s glory.
Jesus said that when a man ‘looks at me, he sees the One who sent me’. By connecting to Jesus, we see the glory of God.
Television before HD TV was Standard Definition (SD), with less sharp picture quality. So, we might ask, was there an SD God first? How did God reveal himself before Jesus Christ came into the world?
Genesis 1-3 describes how man’s proud aspiration and sin resulted in moral devastation and loss of communion with God. But the world is still sustained by God’s kindness.
A great promise
God’s power and wisdom can be recognised in the natural world, his goodness in the provision of food to eat and orderliness of the seasons. This is SD God – with his reality revealed to all, but not with the reconciliation needed to know him personally and regain fellowship with him.
But God has also spoken in the Bible. To Old Testament Israel and the rest of the world, he made this astonishing promise: ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel’. Immanuel means ‘God with us’ – HD God was to come!
Seven hundred years later, God sent an angel from heaven to speak to a Jewish woman called Mary. The virgin Mary was told she would bear a child and that ‘the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God’. God’s eternal Son was to become a man.
Have you grasped the significance of Christmas? If you believe God came to earth when Jesus was born, then you must pursue Jesus. You must seek God by seeking Jesus.
Find out about his miracles and teaching and discover how his death on the cross was part of God’s plan to restore us. Find out about the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and what he promises to do when he returns to earth in power.
Read the four Gospel accounts – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Read them with a heart seeking restoration with God; read them with your eyes fixed on Jesus. It may be that this Christmas you will discover HD God for yourself!
Nathan Pomeroy
