The Coming of Christ

Weeks 1–4

Overview

In four weeks you will witness the most extraordinary entrance in all of history. God becomes human. The eternal Word takes on flesh, is born in obscurity, and steps onto the stage of a world that does not yet know what has changed forever.

Phase 1 moves from eternity to Galilee. It begins before time itself, with John’s prologue declaring that the one who made all things has come to dwell among us. Then we descend into the particular — angelic announcements to an elderly priest and a young woman, prophetic songs that echo centuries of hope, and a birth in Bethlehem so humble that only shepherds are invited. From there the story leaps forward through recognition at the temple, danger under Herod, and thirty hidden years to the banks of the Jordan, where the heavens open and the Father’s voice confirms what Simeon already knew: this is the beloved Son.

Tested in the wilderness where Israel once failed, Jesus emerges to begin gathering followers and performing signs that reveal who he is. A wedding feast becomes a revelation of glory. A Pharisee learns that everything must be born anew. A Samaritan woman discovers living water. Fishermen leave their nets. A paralyzed man walks. Tax collectors are called to the table. And the religious establishment begins to ask uncomfortable questions that will not stop until they reach a cross.

By the end of these four weeks, you will have met the central figure of the New Testament — not as a character in a story, but as the eternal God who entered history, survived its dangers, resisted its temptations, and began turning it upside down. Everything that follows in the remaining forty-eight weeks flows from what happens here. This is the foundation.

Weeks in This Phase