Meditation for The Feast of St John the Evangelist

admin | 27 December 2010

“That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you”

There can be no greater affirmation of the central mystery of the Christian Faith than this Epistle reading from The First Letter of St. John. It echoes, of course, the great Christmas Gospel proclaimed at the Mass of Christmas Night. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God … And the Word was made flesh.”

And that is precisely the point which John is driving home in his Epistle. He is arguing for the absolute and tangible reality of the Incarnation. This man Jesus Christ is “Very God of Very God.”

“That which was from the beginning – heard, seen, looked upon, and handled by our hands is the Word of life.” He bears witness to the divinum mysterium of Christmas. The Word and Son of the Father who is Light and Life is Incarnate; the God made Man is Jesus Christ.

And he is telling us that this is no passing knowledge – a matter for a moment, a mere factoid of idle information – but rather a truth that reveals “eternal life,” the truth upon which our lives ultimately depend for their truth and meaning.

That which he has heard and seen has been declared to others. That which he has heard and seen has been written down and handed on to us. And all for a purpose. The purpose is the meaning of human redemption itself, namely, “that your joy may be full.”

We often forget this simple but profound truth. Salvation is really about the deep joy of our humanity which is to be found in its truth with God. Without God, we may say, we have no real joy. Without God, there is really only our own darkness. Without God, there is really only death and empty despair.

Such is the character of the culture of nihilism. Without God, there is really only our nothingness – no real joy, no real knowledge – no light, and no real life. We are, in a famous phrase, merely “the walking dead.”

To our dark and dreary world, a world of death and despair, a world of folly and sin, comes the great Christian proclamation that changes everything. It is the good news of our redemption accomplished in God’s willingness to engage our humanity in the intimacy of Christ’s holy birth. John bears witness to the Incarnate reality of Christ; the divine mystery of the Word made flesh who dwelt among us. This is divine mystery that makes known to the love of God for our humanity. The divine mystery that is Word, Light and Life. The Divine Mystery that is about the Trinitarian fellowship of God with God in God, The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

His witness is a crucial part of the Christmas mystery. It is a kind of insight, the insight of theological wisdom that sees within, behind and beyond the veil of images to grasp the divine reality in its incarnate truth. What is seen and heard, touched and handled is declared and written down. It is manifested and made known.

There is, as well, a further insight and one which is hinted at in the Gospel reading for this feast day; once again, a reading from The Gospel of John. It is this. The Word of God incarnate means a far greater wisdom that what we can imagine and grasp; “not even the world itself could contain the books that should be written.”

Through the witness of John (and “we know that is witness is true,” it is said), we are opened out to a mystery that is greater than that which we can conceive. It is the mystery of Christmas. It is the mystery of the Incarnation. It is the mystery of God being with us in the very substance of our humanity to bring us joy and salvation.

This is the mystery that has been revealed, not concealed. John is the emphatic and theological witness to the great and central mystery of the Christian Faith.