Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Wednesday before Epiphany
January 3, 2007
Wednesday before Epiphany
1 JOHN 2:29-3:6
If you consider that God is righteous, you also know that everyone who
acts in righteousness is begotten by him. See what love the Father has
bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we
are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Beloved, we are God's children now; what we shall be has not yet been
revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for
we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope based on him
makes himself pure, as he is pure. Everyone who commits sin commits
lawlessness, for sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to
take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who remains in him
sins; no one who sins has seen him or known him.
JOHN 1:29-34
John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Behold, the
Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He is the one of whom
I said, 'A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he
existed before me.' I did not know him, but the reason why I came
baptizing with water was that he might be made known to Israel." John
testified further, saying, "I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from
the sky and remain upon him. I did not know him, but the one who sent
me to baptize with water told me, 'On whomever you see the Spirit
come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the Holy
Spirit.' Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God."
REFLECTION
People often failed to recognize the true identity of Jesus during his
public ministry. John the Baptist desperately tried to call people to
follow Jesus for who he was. John himself had seen the Spirit descend
upon Jesus, marking Jesus out as God's chosen one, his beloved Son.
Another John, the author of the letter we heard today, was eager that
we recognize not only who Jesus is, but who we have become because of
Jesus. John says to us: "Dearly beloved, we are God's children."
This simple statement contains a truth which we will never be able to
fully understand and appreciate. To be God's children is the greatest
privilege and dignity that could be allotted to us human beings.
Do you believe that God the Father loved Jesus, his Son? Do you think
that he cherished him and cared for him? Can you imagine how proud he
was of his Son and how he wished only the best for him?
A great mystery of our faith is that in making us his children, God the
Father looks upon us and sees within us the person of his beloved Son.
He pours out upon us much the same Fatherly affection that he has for
Jesus. Our real worth in God's eyes is not what we do, but simply who
we are, beloved children of God.
We should always want to follow God's will, but we should never think
that we must earn anything from God. God gives to us freely because we
are his children. Heaven is not something that we can buy from God. It
is something that we simply inherit as God's beloved children.
Nothing is greater than this simple truth: "We are God's
children."
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