Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
John 1:12-13 (NIV)

I was on my first major business trip since covid this past week. While on the road and having some extra time on my hands, I continued a seemingly endless task of organizing a massive archive of personal and family photos. Yesterday, I posted a photo on social media that I came across during this process. It’s a photo of my parents taken in 1976. Friends were quick to comment how much I look like my father, a reality that has become increasingly obvious the further I progress on this earthly journey.

Identity is a theme at the very heart of John’s biography of Jesus. In fact, it’s present throughout the opening chapter on a number of levels.

At the time of the original Jesus movement, the followers of Jesus were navigating two prevailing schools of thought: Jewish and Greek. It happened that philosophers in both schools chewed on a concept of the Greek word, logos which is literally translated as “word” but was understood to metaphorically mean something much greater in importance.

The Greeks understood logos to be a rational principle that governs all things. Jewish scholars, on the other hand, considered logos to be the “word” of God which created the world and governs it, equating it to the eternal “law” which existed before creation and was revealed to humanity through Moses.

In the opening of his first-hand witness account of Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection, John submits to his readers a “yes, and.” The eternal Logos is eternal, creator, provider of life and light, sustainer, and was made “flesh and blood” and came to live in the neighborhood.

The fact that this happened, John goes on to explain, has important ramifications for me: the opportunity to be transformed into the spiritual progeny of the divine. John foreshadows what Jesus will tell Nicodemus a couple of chapters into his account: there is a spiritual birth that is every bit as real as the physical one I experienced. There is a spiritual life that is every bit as real as my physical one. There is a spiritual family that is every bit as real as my physical one, complete with resemblance to my Father.

I love John’s version of Jesus’ story. Matthew, Mark, and Luke each have their own takes. John’s was written about 30 years later than the other three. John, the only one of The Twelve to live to old age and die a natural death (the rest were killed for their faith), is writing from a place of deeper wisdom and greater life experience. He has witnessed the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophetic claim that not one stone of Jerusalem’s temple would remain standing. He has grieved the deaths of all his companions. He sees with greater fullness and discernment all that Jesus had said and done. And he communicates it in a beautifully themed and structured work that was lifetime in development.

It was just over 40 years ago that I experienced the spiritual “birth” John introduces in today’s chapter. I look back with deeper wisdom and far more life experience than I had in the heady days of my youth. The DNA that gave me a striking resemblance to my father has been passed on to two generations. When Taylor did one of those online apps that shows you “what you look like as the opposite sex” she discovered that she’s basically a female version of me. Likewise, I found a photo of two-year-old me on my grandfather’s lap that looks astonishingly like my grandson Milo.

I’d like to think that the spiritual resemblance to my heavenly Father has become increasingly clear over those forty years, as well:

more loving and less judgmental
more joyful and less pessimistic
more peaceful and less fearful
more patient and less condemning
more kind and less spiteful
more goodness and less selfish
more gentle and less abrasive
more faithful and less dismissive
more self-controlled and less driven by appetites and emotions.

When it comes to who I am in the Spirit, I desire nothing more than to be identified by my resemblance to my Ol’ Man and my brother, Jesus.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.