"JESUS CHRIST – THE SELF REVELATION OF GOD"

29th December 2021

WEDNESDAY, CHRISTMAS OCTAVE

(1 Jn 2: 3-11); (Lk 2: 22-35)

"JESUS CHRIST – THE SELF REVELATION OF GOD"

Dear Brethren in Christ, today as we heard to the words of the Scriptures, all of us are called to imitate on the Decree and commandments of God, on what all and every one of us have received through Christ, Our Lord and Savior, all the truth and love that He has revealed us. We have to live our lives honestly and initiate ourselves passionately as a holy people that God had called and favored, and to whom God had sent His own beloved Son, that all of us may be protected through Him.

Today we come across in the first reading from the letter of St. John, we perceived the Apostle pressing the faithful to be sincere in their faith, in how they must to be following Christ, in all that He had done during His life. We are all called to be genuine and true witnesses of Christ’s fact and love in our individual communities and humanities. Then, we are no better than frauds and those who admit to be faithful and so far had no love or true faith in the Lord. This is why all of us are repeated by St. John to repetition what we trust in our lives.

St. John particularly urged all of us to love just as the Lord Himself have revealed His love to us. We should follow Him with all of our asset and might, and do whatever we can to live our lives in harmony to the path that He has shown us. We should be truly honest in our wish to follow Him and to commit ourselves to His path. We must not only show edge provision but instead, obey the Lord’s commandments enthusiastically, battle the attractions to sin and be prepared to chief a good Christian life and be model in that life and faith to our fellow brethren.

In today’s Gospel passage we heard the interpretation of the time when the Lord Jesus was presented at the Temple of God in Jerusalem in harmony to the Law by Mary and St. Joseph. At that time, they were met with the heartfelt man of God named Simeon who was already very old and had been to come and expecting the coming of the Lord and His salvation for a long time. He has been told that he would live to see the Redeemer of the world with his very own eyes, and he did lastly see Him as he observed Jesus that day at the Temple of God.

It was there also that he announced God’s Words on the Child Jesus, talking of the Symbol that He has shown the world by His coming and all the phenomena that He would do in rewarding the many predictions that had been made concerning Him. Simeon also shaft of what Mary herself would involvement in the days to come, a presentiment of her mourning at the time of the Crucifixion, when she herself would witness her Son’s pain, suffering and death, and thus having her heart stabbed with the utmost of sorrows.

What we have listened in our Gospel passage today is again another instance of obedience to God, as the Presentation of the Lord was done in accord with the Law of God, and marked the moment that the Lord was exposed and committed to the office that He had been sent to this world for. He was sanctified to God and marked as the One through Whom all that God had deliberate for the salvation of manhood would be satisfied faultlessly. It was the promise of Christ as the future High Priest of all, preceding his role as the One to offer the worthy sacrifice for the compensation of our many sins.

Today, all of us as Christians ought to remind ourselves to be authentic to God and to bestow ourselves to Him. And we should also rival the good instances and stimulus given to us by the great saint whose life and works we celebrate today. St. Thomas Becket, also recognized as St. Thomas of Canterbury was the well-known Archbishop of Canterbury throughout the High Medieval era England, in his great passion serving the people of God and in his ministry, in his denial to let the English king from having his ways in working and regulatory the Church, and finally his renowned martyrdom.

Wrapped gifts evoke a sense of mystery. Similarly, signs of new constructions are shrouded with a veil until they are inaugurated. The world waited for a long time to know God. But he was always hidden from the sight of men; glimpses of him were seen in his creation, in the prophecies and his salvific acts, like the deliverance of the people of Israel from the Egyptians. Ultimately, however, the shroud was removed and the world finally witnessed God in the person of Jesus Christ. Christmas is this celebration of the unwrapping and unveiling of the mystery of God. We have come to know that Jesus is God fully revealed. 

The readings of today, the fifth day of the octave of Christmas, precisely point to this fact. St John describes in the first reading how we can come to know Jesus Christ by keeping his commandments. The commandments not only invite us to submit to his divine authority but more specifically call us to accept them as the revelation of the nature of Jesus. The commandments that Jesus instituted, such as the love of God and of neighbor, are the disclosure of his identity that he is love. Therefore, we come to know Jesus by keeping his commandments. 

But what does this knowing mean? Knowing Jesus is not an intellectual ‘knowing’ but a change of heart! It is a metamorphosis of the self, where we, to whom the gift has been granted of knowing him through his revelation, are also attested that we are worthy recipients of the gift. It is the only gift where the gift is the giver himself. And in receiving this gift, we cannot but share it with others through our words and deeds! Simeon, a righteous and devout man, who was waiting to encounter God, received this gift and he couldn’t contain his joy. We too have received this gift in a higher degree through God’s self-revelation. Let us also share it through our lives. 

Let us all turn towards the Lord with transformed faith, vigour and enthusiasm, and May the Lord continue to guide us and fortify us, so that we may always be brave in living our faith despite the challenges we may meeting in this world. May God bless us all and our every good endeavor for His greater glory. Amen.