January 6, 2015
Tuesday after Epiphany Sunday
Jesus Gives Knowledge and Love
Everyone who loves is begotten by
God and knows God.
With logical consistency we can
rearrange John’s words to read: “Everyone who is begotten by God knows and
loves.”
Knowledge and love: the fruit of
embracing our Baptism. These are two gifts Jesus gives. We need to recognize
this and appreciate it.
Parenthesis: We will do both if we
praise and thank him for these gifts, as Jesus did the Father: “Jesus rejoiced
in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things
from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants’”
(Luke10:21). It is a principle of life that what we praise we will appreciate.
What we don’t praise we will not appreciate. Those most likely to leave the
Church (or not be truly in it) are those who don’t show any enthusiasm during
the Gloria at Mass.
Jesus “saves” us by teaching us truth. John identifies him
as the “Word” (logos,
intelligibility) of God who gives life by giving light: “In the beginning was
the Word… In him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” When many
of his disciples “turned back and no longer went about with him,” Peter’s
reason for staying was: “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal
life.”
Jesus’ words are not just words. The
early Christians called his teaching “the word of life.” Jesus said, “The words
that I have spoken to you are spirit and life… If you continue in my word, you
will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
Jesus saves us from life-destroying
ignorance. Because of blind enslavement to the attitudes and values of our
culture, we “sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” But Jesus came to
free us, to “guide our feet into the way of peace.” His light “shines in the
darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:1; 6:64, 68; 8:31; Luke
1:79; Philippians 2:16; 1John 1:1).
Only Jesus overcomes the darkness
that deludes every human mind and culture.
The Jewish Scriptures, also called
the “Old Testament,” are the revealed word of God himself. But they are
incomplete. Hebrews (1:1) says:
Long ago God spoke
to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last
days he has spoken to us by a Son… He is the reflection of God’s glory and the
exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful
word.
There is only one pure and complete
source of truth for our day: Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh. Those
who do not know Jesus must take what they find in the Jewish Scriptures, then
for the rest pick and choose among the partial and uncertain theories of
groping human beings. But those who know Jesus can find in his words the light
they need to live by, in his example the life that embodies his words, and in
the Church his words made flesh in our time. Jesus is “the way, and the truth,
and the life—the same: yesterday, today and forever” (John 14:6; Hebrews 13:8).
Blessed
is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Justice
shall flower in his days,
and
profound peace, till the moon be no more.
The
Lord is God and has given us light.
Jesus has empowered us to know and
to love.
Pray:
“Lord, with you is
the fountain of life; in your light let me see light!” (Psalm 36)
Practice:
Keep a Bible on your pillow. Read one line every
night.
Discuss:
What have you learned from
Jesus that has helped you to love?
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