December 27 – Third Day in the Octave of Christmas – John the Apostle
1 John 1:1-4 / Psalm 97:1-2, 5-6, 11-12 / John 20:1a and 2-8
What Have We Seen, Heard and Touched?
In this seasons as we find ourselves at the beginning of the story of Jesus we also find ourselves at two other beginnings.
The gospel honoring John the Evangelist on his feast day brings us back to the beginning of the apostolic witness to Jesus. In this beginning John arrives before Peter at the tomb, entering after him and surveying what the Risen Lord has left behind, he sees with eyes of faith and believes. Thus this reading signals the beginning of belief in the Risen Lord.
It is from this “first seeing” that John bears witness, as written in our first reading today. The author testifies to what he has heard, seen and touched. In 1 John, the evangelist witnesses to what “was from the beginning…” but there is a second meaning here to “beginning.” It not only refers to the “beginning of all things,” as in Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1; it even refers to something beyond the new beginning of the Resurrection. It also refers to the beginning of faith that John’s listeners and readers placed in Jesus. It goes back to the birth of faith in John’s community, in John’s fellowship of faith.
When we hear this passage from John’s witness today, we should hear it addressed to yet another beginning: the beginning of our own faith in Christ, incarnate, risen and living among us.
- If you were baptized as an infant and have no recollection of the event – nor even had a say in it – perhaps you could reflect on that time in your life when you consciously made the faith your own. What was the earliest moment you began to claim Christ and fellowship with his people as your own walk of faith?
- If you became a disciple as an adult, to whose witness do you trace your own awakening to faith? What were the gradual steps you took or the dramatic awakening you experienced?
- Even those of us who were baptized as infants must credit human words, concrete moments and specific communities with being vessels of our coming to mature faith. What were yours?
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