Word to the Wise
Tuesday, December 27, 2011 - Dec. 27 - St. John, Apostle and evangelist
[1 John 1:1-4 and John 20:1a+2-8,770]What we have seen and heard we proclaim now to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; for our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing this so that our joy may be complete.
Christian tradition associates the apostle, John, with five works in the New Testament: the Gospel of John, The Book of Revelation, and three "Letters." Together these works are called "the Johannine literature." The "association" is a broad one since modern biblical scholarship identifies a number of "hands" and many levels of understanding. Perhaps one might use the word, "family of literature," recognizing that these works are more like cousins than siblings! Yet, they all point us toward that figure whom tradition also calls "the Beloved Disciple," because the gospel speaks of him as "the one whom Jesus loved." [John 13:23]
We know that John was the son of Zebedee, and worked, along with his brother James, as a fisherman. We also know that John, along with James, struggled to understand the meaning of Jesus' teaching because he aspired to a position of importance in the "kingdom," and wanted, on one occasion, to call down fire on a village that rejected the teaching. We also know that Jesus commended his mother to the care of John at the foot of the cross! All of these and other bits of information do have a way of "fleshing out" the apostle John and adding a dimension to his "works" which are so rich in their understanding of Jesus.
The words quoted above, from the first scripture for today in the first letter of John, sum up the role of an evangelist and preacher: What the preacher has seen and heard, the preacher now proclaims so that others may learn and have fellowship with and in Christ. I, for one, am grateful for the Gospel of John, especially the "Prologue," because it has had a singular impact on my own spirituality. This "prologue" is read as one of the gospel scriptures on Christmas Day, at the later Mass During the Day. If you missed it, I think the effort to read it today, on the feast of St. John, would be very rewarding, especially the words: And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth. AMEN