1 John 2:22-28; Psalm
98:1-4; John 1:19-28
Who is the
liar? Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ.
1 John 2:22
Merry Ninth Day of Christmas!
By now, if it hasn’t already been done, most of the world
has discarded their Christmas trees, put away their decorations, and generally
returned to “normal” life. The parties
are over. They were fun. But now we move on. Not so for the Church! We are still in the midst of the Christmas
celebration. So don’t be afraid to
continue to wish one another a Merry Christmas, keep the tree up, leave the
decorations, enjoy the food, and continue to prayerfully meditate on the great
themes of Christmas.
I was noticing that the Church in her Lectionary for the
Christmas season gives us a series of readings from St. John, most notably from
his first letter in addition to his Gospel and excerpts from the
Revelation. It made me think that it
would be a good idea to reflect a little on the Beloved Disciple of our Lord.
We have a decent amount of material about John, both from
the Gospels as well as his own writings.
John was brother to St. James the Greater. Together, they worked for their father,
Zebedee, in his fishing business. It was
from this that our Lord called them to follow Him and become “fishers of
men.” John was likely quite young at the
time, possibly in his late teens. He
quickly became a member of Jesus’ “inner circle” comprised of himself, Peter,
and James. He was the only one of the
Twelve to faithfully follow Jesus to the cross and for his faithfulness he was
rewarded by becoming the foster son, if you will, of the Blessed Virgin Mary. After the Ascension and Pentecost, John
preached throughout Asia, settling in Ephesus as a base of operations. The Blessed Mother remained with him until
her Assumption.
John was the only Apostle who was not martyred. He was tortured and exiled, but died of old
age around the end of the first century.
In his later years, it is understandable that the Church would look to
him for particular guidance. Heresies
were already arising at that period in reference to Our Lord as well as aspects
of salvation. John was the only
surviving member of the Twelve to provide definitive guidance. His writings bear this out as it is easy to
see his arguments are meant to combat the encroaching gnostic influences.
For this reason, John is pretty concrete where we might tend
to be fluctuating. For instance, in
today’s text there is no hint of any “broad minded” approach. John states definitively- anyone who denies
that Jesus is the Christ is a liar. In
Revelation 22:15 John places liars outside of the kingdom of heaven. In 2 John 10, 11 John tells his followers
they are to have nothing to do with heretics.
They are not to greet them or invite them into their homes lest they
become sharers in their wicked deeds.
There are a couple of accounts from the early Church Fathers
that relate stories of John that sound consistent with what we see in the
biblical record.
The first is from Irenaeus, who was bishop of Lyons in the
second century. Irenaeus can be thought
of as a spiritual grandson to St. John.
Irenaeus was taught by Polycarp, who had been taught by John. Irenaeus cites Polycarp for his source. He writes, “John, the disciple of the Lord,
going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of the
bath-house without bathing, exclaiming, 'Let us fly, lest even the bath-house
fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within,'"
[Against Heresies, Book 3, ch. 3, par. 4].
There is also a lengthy story told by Clement of Alexandria
and related by Eusebius in which John entrusted a young convert to a
bishop. However, the bishop was lax in
his oversight and the young man was taken in by a group of thieves and became a
thief with them. When John was again
visiting in the area he asked the bishop for the deposit he left with him. The bishop was chagrined as he knew that he
was not left with any money by John.
Seeing his confusion, John said frankly, “I demand the young man and the
soul of the brother.” The bishop
bemoaned that he was dead, meaning he was spiritually dead because he had gone
back to sin. John was enraged and
castigated the bishop for being such a poor shepherd of this soul. John ascertained the whereabouts of the young
man and went after him. When the young
man saw John he fled for he was so ashamed.
But John, in his old age, ran after the man promising absolution even if
it must come at the price of his own soul.
The young man stopped and was restored in tears.
Both of these stories demonstrate how seriously John took
the gospel, its aberrations through heresy, and the necessity of preaching it
for the salvation of souls.
This brings the themes of Christmas into sharper view. Why is it so important to celebrate for 12
days? Because these mysteries will be
lost on us if we do not give adequate time for their prayerful reflection. We live in an age when people want to treat
everything as if it’s “no big deal”.
They laugh at those who appear to be too uptight about it all. But John demonstrates that these things most
certainly are a “big deal”.
Join me, friends, in continuing our celebration of Christmas. It is horrific to think of one soul being
lost to hell. However it is beyond all
joy when one soul finds the path to eternal life and is made one with our Lord. Then let us labor for the salvation of souls-
our own as well as others- that there will continually be great joy and
Christmas need not end after merely 12 days, but go on perpetually.
Merry Christmas!
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