Wisdom from... Scripture

Lluís Borrassà, St Peter's Altar  (15 c)

In today's epistle John tells us:

There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love. (1 John 4:18)

While we shouldn't presume our own merit, we also shouldn't fear what God has in store for us. Our fears of punishment from God often betray a lack of confidence in God, or a lack of confidence in our own love. But when we truly remain in love, we remain in God (1 John 4:16), and we have no need of fear.

Paul offers us three theological virtues: faith, hope and love; not scrupulosity, fear and self-loathing. Let yourself love God and neighbor freely, and take some time to explore where your life is rooted. Do you act morally out of fear of punishment? Or do you act out of love in all things? Where do you remain?

Loving perfectly can seem like no easy task, but in reality it is no task at all, since Jesus has already completed the task for us. By offering of himself and His Spirit, he has made it possible for us to exist in love, rather than making an effort to love. By acknowledging that he is the Son of God, we allow him to remain in us and root our lives in love (1 John 4:15).

It can be hard to hear this simple message of hope through the noise of the everyday. We can allow ourselves to stray from love and move into fear when we get distracted by judging other people or by the judgments of other people, or by the well-meant, but sometimes misguided urgings of our friends and neighbors.

Today, take a moment to speak to God in prayer and examine where you remain. God can help you tune out the complicated messages of the world, and turn up the simple message of the gospel: do not be afraid! (Mark 6:50b)

Wisdom from... John

In today's readings we hear from the first letter of John, in which he offers us the ultimate wisdom: remain in the Lord, and reap life from the Lord's annointing.

"Let what you heard from the beginning remain in you. If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made us: eternal life. I write you these things about those who would deceive you. As for you, the anointing that you received from him remains in you, so that you do not need anyone to teach you. But his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and not false; just as it taught you, remain in him." 1 John 2:24-27

John's attention to the dichotomy of deceit and truth in these verses and the verses around them serves to identify the truth with Christ, and deceit with the antichrist. Jesus not only offers us the truth; he is the truth. The truth we heard "from the beginning" must remain in us, but John has already told us (in 1 Jn 1:1) that Jesus is the Word of Life, and the Word (which is also referred to by the Church fathers as the Logos, Wisdom, and Reason itself) is "what was from the beginning". In other words, it is Jesus himself that must remain in us, in addition to the words he has spoken to us, because he is the Word that is spoken.

Wisdom... from the Church Fathers

[Christ] is called Man... that by Himself He may sanctify humanity, and be as it were a leaven to the whole lump; and by uniting to Himself that which was condemned may release it from all condemnation, becoming for all men all things that we are, except sin; --body, soul, mind and all through which death reaches--and thus He became Man, who is the combination of all these; God in visible form, because He retained that which is perceived by mind alone. He is Son of Man, both on account of Adam, and of the Virgin from Whom He came; from the one as a forefather, from the other as His Mother, both in accordance with the law of generation, and apart from it. He is Christ, because of His Godhead. For this is the Anointing of His Manhood, and does not, as is the case with all other Anointed Ones, sanctify by its action, but by the Presence in His Fulness of the Anointing One; the effect of which is that That which anoints is called Man, and makes that which is anointed God. He is The Way, because He leads us through Himself.
 

                                                                              -St. Gregory Nazienzen, Orations 

For the past few days, the liturgical readings have been emphasizing a few important things:

1) Christ is truly human, and the meaning of the Incarnation is that the second person of the Trinity truly did assume human flesh, and not the appearance thereof. We see this especially in the geneology of Matthew heard on Monday (Matthew 1:1-17), which seeks to confirm the veracity of Christ's humanity.

2) That Christ is truly God-- we hear in today's readings the proclamations of the angel Gabriel announcing the conceptions of Samson and John, who are called "consecrated to God", and how this is distinct from Gabriel's annunciation of the conception of Jesus (in tomorrow's reading), who is called "Son of the Most High". We know that Jesus is no mere judge or prophet.

and

3) That though we are deserving of condemnation, the Incarnation--the true humanity of our God who is the Word made flesh--serves to remove the condemnation against us. On Sunday we heard the following from the prophet Zephaniah:

Shout for joy, daughter Zion! sing joyfully, Israel! Be glad and exult with all your heart, daughter Jerusalem!h 15 The LORD has removed the judgment against you. (Zep 3:14-15a)

Gregory Nazienzen's words, quoted above, remind us of how important it is to ponder the Incarnation, the means by which God descended to make Godself The Way for us, and in so doing sanctified all of humanity.

Christmas grows closer and closer as we near the end of the last full week of Advent. Join us at 8:30pm EST for the 3rd installment of Wait and See, a special Advent journey with Father Richard Erickson.