7th day in the Octave of Christmas – First Reading
Commentary on 1 John 2:18-21
Today we look at the ‘fourth condition’ for ‘walking in the light’.* This calls for us to be on our guard against ‘antichrists’.
The writer tells his readers:
Children, it is the last hour!
It is the last hour in the sense of being that period between the death and resurrection of Jesus and his Second Coming in glory and judgement. The early Christians believed that the Second Coming would happen within their lifetime. They believed that they were living in the ‘last hour’, and one of the signs would be the appearance of anti-messiahs and false teachers. However, by the time this letter was written towards the end of the 1st century AD, that expectation was already being modified.
Nevertheless, it is a warning that we need to take seriously. Our planet as we know it may continue for thousands of years (although some believe we are doing our best to prevent that happening!), but what is much more relevant is that the ‘last hour’ of each one of us is not far away. Some of us will go on to a ripe old age and slip away when we have reached the fullness of our time, but others will have their lives cut short by sickness, disease or some other unforeseen happening. The warning today is timely.
Before that final day, the letter warns that “now many antichrists have come.” It is a term found only in the First and Second Letters of John. However, both Matthew (24:24) and Mark (13:22) speak of “false messiahs”. Speaking of the ‘last days’, Mark quotes Jesus as saying:
And if anyone says to you at that time, ‘Look! Here is the Messiah!’ or ‘Look! There he is!’—do not believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will appear… (Mark 13:21-22)
In the Second Letter to the Thessalonians (2 Thess 2:3) there is mention of “the lawless one”. The Gospels of Mark and Matthew and the Book of Revelation speak of several persons rather than just one.
The First Letter of John seems to make a distinction between an ‘antichrist’ who comes from outside the community (personified in the Roman emperors who persecuted the church), and those false teachers who come from inside. The Church has always been, and always will be, attacked from without and within.
“Antichrists” in the plural are linked to all those who are spreading false teaching about Christ and the gospel within the community. And their presence is, says the letter, an indication that the ‘final hour’ is already on its way. However, many of these have since left the community, an indication that they never really belonged. Those who stay:
…have been anointed by the Holy One, and all of you have knowledge.
In other words, they are genuinely in touch with Jesus and with God. The ‘knowing’ is based on personal experience and not simply on a set of ideas.
As Christians today, we are constantly bombarded from within and without by people who, wittingly or unwittingly, are trying to undermine the vision of the Kingdom which Jesus passed on to us. We should not be surprised at this. It was foretold again and again in the Gospels and the New Testament. And we have to admit that some of the accusations thrown against us are true. Many, however, are trying to undermine our central mission. What is important is how we respond. The only way we can respond is, through word and action, always to speak the Truth in love. The passage concludes:
I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and you know that no lie comes from the truth.
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*The first part of John’s Letter describes four conditions for ‘walking in the light’. See 1 John 1:5—2:28.
7th day in the Octave of Christmas – Gospel
Commentary on John 1:1-18
There are three occasions when we read the Prologue of John’s Gospel during the Christmas season. The first is at the Daytime Mass on Christmas Day, the second on the 2nd Sunday after Christmas and finally today, New Year’s Eve.
This magnificent passage provides a powerful opening to this Gospel. It lays out the main themes of John’s Gospel—Life, Light, Truth, the World, Testimony and the pre-existence of Jesus Christ. He is the Incarnate Logos or Word, who reveals God the Father to us. It was originally probably an early Christian hymn, and parallels closely two other great hymns quoted in the Pauline letters—one in the Letter to the Colossians, and the other in the Letter to the Philippians. All speak of Jesus’ special relationship to God as his Father.
Its opening words are the same as the very first words in the Old Testament:
In the beginning…
But whereas Genesis is really speaking of the beginning of our created universe, John goes back much further to the infinite nature of God himself. And in this, we find the Word already existing. The Word was in a close relationship with God and the Word was of the very same nature as God.
The term ‘Word’ has a number of inter-related meanings. For us a word can describe a person (e.g. man, woman, child) or a thing (e.g. house, table, tree). But here, Word indicates an active and creative word (somewhat akin to the power a great work of art can express). The Word, as distinct from the Father, is also seen as the instrument through which God creates:
All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.
And Word also points to God as the ultimate source of all meaning and reality. Jesus then is the Word of God—God’s self-communication. Through him the world came into being and through him we are led to God as the source of all meaning for our lives. That meaning is totally beyond the power of our human minds, but Jesus opens the door a little for us to see more than we could manage on our own.
The two great gifts that come to us through the Word are Life and Light. Later Jesus will say:
I AM the Resurrection and the Life… (John 11:25)
and
I AM the Bread of Life… (John 6:35)
and he will also say:
I AM the Light of the world… (John 8:12)
The Light that is Christ shines in the darkness of our world. It is a light that cannot be overcome, because it represents the ultimate values of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Justice and Love, Compassion and Fellowship, Freedom and Peace.
The coming of the Light was prepared for by John the Baptist. He had been sent by God, just as Jesus himself is sent by his Father. John himself was not the Light, but gave witness to the Light. In addition to John, there are many testimonies to Jesus: the Samaritan woman, the Scriptures, Jesus’ works, the crowds, the Spirit and his own disciples. And, finally, we might add—each one of us.
Jesus was fully inserted in the world, the same world which owes its very existence to him, and yet it did not know him—‘know’ in the sense of not recognising him or acknowledging him to be who and what he really is. The Gospel also records, surely with sadness, that the Word came to “what was his own” (i.e ‘his own home’), Israel, but his own people did not accept him. Of course, that is a generalised statement because there were many, including all the first followers of Jesus, who were Israelites. But the leadership by and large (again with exceptions like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea) did not accept him and were instrumental in his death.
Those, however, who did accept the Word were given the power to become children of God. As such they are brothers and sisters of Jesus, the Word. And this does not happen simply by natural birth or because they were born into a particular community, but by the choice of God. A Jew was someone born of Jewish parents and circumcised, and who chose to observe the Law.
Then comes the dramatic statement: “the Word became flesh”. The Word took on our human nature in all its fullness. He did not have, as some people believed, just the external appearance of a human, but was through and through a man like us in all things. And he lived right among us. The Greek term literally means he “pitched his tent or tabernacle”. In the Old Testament, God was believed to be present to his people in the Tent of Meeting. The Word, in his humanity, is the new presence of God among us. And we might add here, that in our times the Christian community, as the Body of the Risen Christ, is now the tabernacle of Jesus’ presence in the world.
And then we saw his “glory”, namely, the glory of God’s visible manifestation of his power. Formerly filling the tabernacle and the Temple, it is now found in the Incarnate Word, Jesus, God’s only Son. It is a presence “full of grace and truth”. ‘Grace’ is the love of God as experienced in our lives, and ‘Truth’ is that wholeness and integrity which reflects the deepest values we associate with God.
And now:
From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace*.
We have all been given a share of the fullness of Grace and Truth, a share which we hope will grow with time. It is “grace in place of grace”. The grace of the Old Covenant is now replaced with the richer grace of the New Covenant. And it is “grace upon grace” as the grace of the Old Covenant is enriched by the grace of the New Covenant.
Obviously, the text is very rich and dense and needs a lot of contemplation, more than can be shared in a brief reflection. And the same message is really given by Luke in his more down-to-earth story of the conception and the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. In truth, the two passages complement and enrich each other.
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*also translated, “grace in place of grace”.