9 January – Reading
Commentary on 1 John 4:11-18
The reading continues to remind us of the primacy of God’s love. It begins with a very significant statement:
Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.
One would expect the writer to have said that, if God loves us so much, we should love God back—but no. The real test of whether we are returning God’s love is our passing on that love to our brothers and sisters. God does not need our love and, in fact, strictly speaking we cannot give to God something he already has in infinite abundance. That is why we respond by passing it on.
Part of the reason for that is because “no one has ever seen God”. This statement is directed against the people called Pneumatikoi (from the Greek, meaning ‘the spirit people’), who held that a human being could make direct contact with God simply by intuition. No, God cannot be seen. That means that it is difficult to measure our real love for him. On the other hand, it is very easy for us to think that we love him. (Remember the comic strip character Charlie Brown’s famous remark: “I love mankind; it’s people I can’t stand.”)
But John says that if we can genuinely love the people around us—who are very visible indeed, sometimes uncomfortably so—then God is really present in us through that love and it gradually transforms us.
God is also present in us through our faith in and commitment to Jesus as the Son of God. The reading tells us:
God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God.
Because God is love, those who deeply love:
…abide in God, and God abides in them.
Here again, we have the double theme of this letter: To obey God is to believe in Jesus as his Son and to love those around us.
Finally, love and fear do not co-exist. When we are filled with the love of God, a love which flows out from us towards others, there is nothing we need fear. That is, we have no need to be afraid of God or his judgement (although there may be things happening in our life which may generate fear). Fear comes from the threat of punishment, but for the one who is close to God in love, such fear has no meaning. If I do experience a fear of God, then it is an indication that my love is defective. (This fear is not to be confused with ‘fear of the Lord’, one of the gifts of the Spirit. ‘Fear’ in that sense is rather a sense of awe at God’s infinity, but not the kind of fear when we come face to face with a life-threatening danger.) If there is no love in us, then we simply do not know God who, by definition, “is love”.
Repeating what has already been said, our Christian life is about being loving persons, not primarily about orthodoxy or theological expertise, or conformity to rules, or making sacrifices, or carrying out “religious” duties. St Paul put it this way:
…if I…do not have love, I am nothing. (Cor 13:2)
In verses just prior to today’s reading, John says:
Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
(1 John 4:8)
If I am not a loving person, all the rest is a waste. If I am a truly loving person, everything else is taken care of.
And what is the source of that love? It is not ourselves. Again, John says:
In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us…
(1 John 4:10)
Our loving acts are only an expression of his love working in us and through us. Our love is always a response to his, and never the other way round. The evidence is in God’s sending:
…his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
(1 John 4:10)
Jesus hanging on the cross is the most dramatic sign of God’s love for us, a love that is totally gratuitous (so we call it ‘grace’) and never earned by any action of ours.
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9 January – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 6:45-52
Today’s Gospel follows immediately on yesterday’s account of the feeding of the 5,000. We are told that Jesus “made” his disciples get into the boat and precede him to the far side of the lake. Jesus himself sent the crowd away. The use of the word “made” implies that they did not go very willingly.
From John’s version of this story we know that the people were very excited about what had happened and wanted to make Jesus king. One can imagine that the disciples too were basking in the reflected glory and popularity of their Master. Jesus would have none of it. He, first of all, packed off his disciples in the boat, and then sent the crowds away. He himself retired to the mountains to pray. Was Jesus himself tempted by the enthusiasm of the crowds? Here was the crowd, literally eating out of his hand. What a wonderful opportunity to win them over to his Way! But he knows that that is not the way it is going to happen. He retires to the remoteness of the mountains and renews his closeness to his Father and his desire to do only his Father’s will.
In the meantime, a storm had come up on the lake and the disciples’ boat was being tossed about dangerously. (It is known that sudden storms are a feature of the Sea of Galilee.) The disciples were in big trouble. Jesus sees them and comes to them walking on the water, but makes as if to pass them by. They thought he was a ghost and were even more afraid. Then he spoke to them:
Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.
As soon as Jesus got into the boat, the wind died down. They were utterly “astounded”, because, says the Evangelist:
…they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.
In reading this story we need to go beyond merely a manifestation of God’s power in Jesus, a power that can even control the elements. The story has strong symbolic overtones. Here, as elsewhere, the boat with the disciples on board is a symbol of a Christian community. The sea surrounding it is the world. Sometimes that world gets very stormy and seriously threatens the very existence of the community.
Jesus suddenly appears and seems to be passing by. He is never far away, but he does need to be called. The disciples’ reaction, far from being comforted, was one of terror. All they saw was a ghost. They did not believe it could really be him—they thought him far away, still on land.
Then Jesus speaks: “It is I”. Literally, in Greek, ego eimi, translated, “I AM”—God’s own name—and he tells them to “not be afraid”. With Jesus, there is never anything to fear, because perfect love casts out all fear.
As well, as soon as Jesus steps into the boat, there is a calm. Is the calm just in the sea or is the deeper calm in the hearts of the disciples, knowing that Jesus is with them? Jesus is the source of true peace.
The disciples are “astounded” because they did not yet understand what had happened during the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus will bring this up again with them later on (see Mark 8:17-21). They only saw a miraculous multiplication; they missed, as probably most of the crowd did, the deeper meaning of the event as a tangible expression of God’s love and care for his people. The same care was at work in the boat. And this message is clear for every Christian community today.
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