by CCW | 27 December 2022 10:00
The Feast of St. John the Evangelist belongs to the Christmas mystery and deepens our understanding of the Christmas Gospels about the Word made flesh proclaimed by John himself and about Christ’s nativity conveyed to us by Luke and Matthew. The point of emphasis is on his testimony and by extension on the witness of the Scriptures themselves to the Revelation of God in Christ.
Something great and wonderful is revealed to us. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life”, John states in his 1st Epistle. It is the strongest possible affirmation of the Incarnation and here he signals to us the end or purpose of what is revealed and made known to us: “that your joy may be full”.
And yet, as John himself also reminds us, what is made known of the mystery of God with us in Jesus Christ in no wise captures the fullness of the mystery of God himself. It is an important cautionary note, a recognition that the truth of God is by definition always greater and more than human knowing. We do not possess the truth, the truth possesses us. We are opened out to the inexhaustible mystery of the wonder of God, a mystery which the world cannot contain and possess. “The world itself could not contain the books that should be written”, he says, about the “many other things which Jesus did”.
Yet what has been manifested to us and what he says, “we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you” is “that eternal life, which was with the Father”. It belongs to our fellowship with the fellowship of the Trinity, “that ye also may have fellowship with us”. This is the deep joy of the Christmas mystery: our fellowship with one another in fellowship with God.
This is what the Collect means about our “being enlightened by the doctrine”, the teaching of John. His teaching illuminates the wonder and mystery of Christmas, the wonder and mystery of what is revealed in all of the images that belong to the scenes of Christ’s holy birth. There is more to what we see than what meets the eye. We behold in all of the stories of Christmas nothing less than the Word made flesh. We are enfolded in the mystery of God himself. This is our joy and end, the light of everlasting life.
Fr. David Curry
Feast of St. John the Evangelist, Xmas 2022
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