The following is a part of a meditation series that I write with my wife, called Somedays’ Meditations. We started it in our home parish for our tweens, and we thought it would be helpful to folks online as well. You can read the meditations here, or you can visit https://christchurchmanlius.org/somedays-meditations to see them as a collected volume.

Scripture:
Jesus came to Galilee…saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

Mark 1:14-15

Activity:
Jesus talked about a lot of things, but one thing that was most often on his lips was ‘the good news’ or ‘the Gospel.’ But what is the Gospel?

We call the books of the Bible that talk about Jesus’s life the gospels, because they tell about the good news. That good news is that Jesus, the God, came. He came to our world, he came to our side, he came to live with humanity. God did not leave humanity to live alone, far from him, but decided to walk the earth as one of his own creations, even if that meant that he would have to die in a rather violent way. He loved and still loves us so much that he wanted to be with us, and so he was incarnated as a human, as Jesus Christ, to do just this.

But why? Why do this? Well, in part, God loved humanity so much that he wanted to be as close to us as possible, and becoming human was the way to do that. It also may be that something was keeping God and humanity apart. People have a penchant for forgetting about God, and God may have wanted to overcome that and show how much he cared. Some say that humanity has done so many bad things that we couldn’t get closer to God even if we wanted, and so God overcome that, too, by showing how strong, and how humble, he is.

Whatever the reason, what we know is that God so loved the world that he came to live among us – and not just live, but also died. That’s a pretty tremendous thing. It’s one of the reasons we worship him, and it’s one of the reasons we give him thanks so often.

Prayer:
Holy God, thank you for giving us Jesus Christ, who is you as much as he is your son. Please be with us in the good times and in the bad times. Give us hope, strength, love, and joy in your presence now and for all the days of our lives.