Word to the Wise
Tuesday, January 3, 2023 - Jan. 3
[1 John 2:29-3:6 and John 1:29-34]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. [1 John] "Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God." [John]
Recognizing and believing in Jesus as the one whom God has sent is at the center of the Gospel According to John and in the Letters of John. To believe in Jesus is to have eternal life now and in the life to come. [John 6:40, 47] The Letter to John today says "We are God's children now." A good way to appreciate the Gospel According to John is just to read the encounters and the responses of those who meet Jesus, from John the Baptist in today's gospel to Mary Magdalen at the tomb. Not every encounter results in faith - cf. the crippled beggar at John 5:1-17 and the dialogues with religious authorities.
The Letters of John contain some straightforward challenges to daily life. If we believe in Jesus, we must love as he did. If we are a child of God, how will anyone else know it? Have we "seen" and can "testify" that he is the Son of God? AMEN