20240106 FAITH IN THE SON OF GOD IS THE WAY TO SHARE THE LIFE OF GOD
06 January 2024, Saturday
First reading | 1 John 5:5-13 © |
There are three witnesses: the Spirit and the water and the blood
Who can overcome the world?
Only the man who believes that Jesus is the Son of God:
Jesus Christ who came by water and blood,
not with water only,
but with water and blood;
with the Spirit as another witness –
since the Spirit is the truth –
so that there are three witnesses,
the Spirit, the water and the blood,
and all three of them agree.
We accept the testimony of human witnesses,
but God’s testimony is much greater,
and this is God’s testimony,
given as evidence for his Son.
Everybody who believes in the Son of God
has this testimony inside him;
and anyone who will not believe God
is making God out to be a liar,
because he has not trusted
the testimony God has given about his Son.
This is the testimony:
God has given us eternal life
and this life is in his Son;
anyone who has the Son has life,
anyone who does not have the Son does not have life.
I have written all this to you
so that you who believe in the name of the Son of God
may be sure that you have eternal life.
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 147:12-15,19-20 © |
O praise the Lord, Jerusalem!
or
Alleluia!
O praise the Lord, Jerusalem!
Zion, praise your God!
He has strengthened the bars of your gates
he has blessed the children within you.
O praise the Lord, Jerusalem!
or
Alleluia!
He established peace on your borders,
he feeds you with finest wheat.
He sends out his word to the earth
and swiftly runs his command.
O praise the Lord, Jerusalem!
or
Alleluia!
He makes his word known to Jacob,
to Israel his laws and decrees.
He has not dealt thus with other nations;
he has not taught them his decrees.
O praise the Lord, Jerusalem!
or
Alleluia!
Gospel Acclamation | cf.Mk9:6 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
The heavens opened and the Father’s voice resounded
‘This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.’
Alleluia!
Gospel | Mark 1:6-11 © |
'You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you'
In the course of his preaching John said:
‘Someone is following me, someone who is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to kneel down and undo the strap of his sandals. I have baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.’
It was at this time that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised in the Jordan by John. No sooner had he come up out of the water than he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit, like a dove, descending on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you.’
FAITH IN THE SON OF GOD IS THE WAY TO SHARE THE LIFE OF GOD
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [1 JOHN 5:5-13; MARK 1:6-11]
What is the real purpose of the Word becoming flesh? Why did God incarnate Himself in Jesus? Only for one reason: so that we can share in His life! God wants to share the very life He has with His Son with us, His beloved sons and daughters. This is His love for us. God became man so that we can see His face and feel His love concretely in our lives. He knows that we can only encounter Him through our humanity. Hence, in His mercy He accommodates us by becoming one of us and with us, except in sin.
How can His incarnation enable us to share in His divine life? Besides revealing to us the face of God by His life, passion, death and resurrection, Christ came to give us access to the divine nature of God. This life is given to us now, principally through the sacraments of initiation. Often, people say it does not matter whether we are Christians or not, so long as we believe in God. Consequently, it does not matter which faith one belongs to. As a consequence of a lack of appreciation of the importance of the mystery of the incarnation and what Christ came to do for us, many Catholics lack evangelical zeal to bring others to Christ. Many are indifferent to evangelization and some even compromise their faith in Christ as the Son of God and the Saviour of the world in the name of religious harmony and out of deference to the sensitivities of other religions. To prepare us for the feast of Epiphany, which is the celebration of the manifestation of Christ as the Saviour of humanity, the liturgy precisely underscores the importance of believing in the name of the Son of God so that we can have life.
Indeed, St John reminds us “God has given us eternal life and this life is in his Son; anyone who has the Son has life, anyone who does not have the Son does not have life. I have written all this to you so that you who believe in the name of the Son of God may be sure that you have eternal life.” Christ is the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through Him, because only the one who is in the bosom of the Father can reveal Him to us, only the One who is God Himself can give us a share in the life of God and only the One who is truly man can lead us to His Father by showing us the way to overcome sin, living a life of unselfish love towards our fellowmen and obedience to God. How, then, does faith in Christ make it possible for us to share in His divine life?
Through Christ, we come to realize that our sins are forgiven by the Father and that we are loved. Through Christ we see how much the Father loves us and always wants to forgive us for our failings, seventy times seven, which is always! However, this is on condition that we truly accept His forgiveness in our hearts. This forgiveness of sins is prophetically dramatized in the baptism of Jesus in the river Jordan. By allowing Himself to be baptized by John the Baptist, He showed that He was truly a man, since God does not need any repentance of sins. Christ has no sins, but by receiving baptism from John, He wants us to realize that He has carried our sins in His body and therefore He stands in proxy for the forgiveness of our sins.
Through Christ too, we see the love of the Father expressed by His death on the cross where He shed His blood for us. By His death on the cross, He demonstrated the limitless love of the Father for us and at the same time underscored that He had conquered sin, hatred and death by His refusal to surrender to the fear of death and unforgiveness of our enemies. He overcame sin by truth, hatred by love and death by dying. Love and life therefore are the last words, not sin and death.
Finally, through Christ’s surrender of His Spirit to the Father upon His death, He made it possible to pour forth this same Spirit on us allso that we can now appropriate His very life for ourselves, since His Spirit is given to us to accomplish what He accomplished in the power of the same Spirit. With that same Spirit, He was raised from the dead and now lives wholly forever with His Father at His right hand. Sharing the power of His Father, He bestows and unleashes upon us that Spirit as well so that we can now share in the divine life of God.
It is within this context that we can appreciate today’s first reading regarding the elements of water, blood and Spirit in coming to share in the life of Christ. St John underscores three realities that are needed to share in the life of God. He wrote, “Who can overcome the world? Only the man who believes that Jesus is the Son of God: Jesus Christ who came by water and blood, not with water only, but with water and blood; with the Spirit as another witness.”
These three stages of participating in the life of God are given to us through the sacraments of initiation. As Christ is no longer visibly seen by us, He bequeaths to the Church the sacraments so that we can continue to see and experience what the early disciples saw, heard and touched. Christ, who is the Sacrament of the Father, the symbol, sign and reality, entrusts to His Church the sacraments of baptism, Eucharist and confirmation so that He can continue to impart to us His forgiveness, love and His Spirit.
Through the sacrament of baptism, which is symbolized by water, He washes our sins away, frees us from the dominion of the kingdom of darkness, makes us a new creation, and incorporates us into the community of grace in the Church, His body. We are made one in Him, having been reconciled with the Father with all our sins forgiven. The sacrament of baptism therefore is the means and also our expressed confession in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. By immersing ourselves in the water, we are committed to die to ourselves, our selfishness and our sins so as to rise with Christ. Through this sacrament too we receive the grace of sanctification and new life in Christ, sharing in the divine life of God.
Through the sacrament of the Eucharist, we join Jesus in offering ourselves as a living sacrifice to the world. The Eucharist is the summit of the Church’s worship because it is both the sacrifice of Christ and that of His Church, which is His body. Through our union with Christ in the celebration of the Eucharist and our reception of the Lord’s own body and blood, we are transformed into Christ and become one body and one spirit in Him. In this way, the Church becomes more and more Christ as we are all united into one body. Through Christ, our worship to the Father is complete and we are united with God through grace.
Finally, through the giving of the Holy Spirit at baptism when we become the children of God and at the sacrament of confirmation when we become His witnesses to the world through the gifts given to us for the building of His Church and for the work of evangelization, Christ is made known to the whole world. Only through the Holy Spirit can we be sanctified in Christ and through the same Spirit be united in love and be filled with the power for mission.
Hence, water, blood and spirit sum up the Christian life. Any Christian who wants to share the fullness of the life of God is baptized, confirmed and remains one with the Church through the celebration and reception of the Eucharist.
The question that remains to be answered is whether we believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Without faith in Jesus as the Son of God, there can be no question of the efficacy of the sacraments as the former presupposes faith. Without faith in Christ, the sacraments would have no effect in our lives, even though in principle, the sacraments truly mediate the graces implied. But if we lack faith, we are not receptive of the grace that comes from the sacraments since it is Christ who gives us the grace.
For this reason, both the scripture readings assert that Christ’s divinity is not something given only by human testimony but by God Himself. St John wrote, “we accept the testimony of human witnesses, but God’s testimony is much greater, and this is God’s testimony, given as evidence for His Son. Everybody who believes in the Son of God has this testimony inside him; and anyone who will not believe God is making God out to be a liar, because he has not trusted the testimony God has given about his Son.” God has given us His endorsement at the baptism of Jesus when “no sooner had he come up out of the water than he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit, like a dove, descending on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you.'” Finally, God seals His approval on the life and teaching of Jesus by raising Him from the dead. God is therefore our testimony that all that Jesus did and taught are true. We can therefore truly confess that Jesus is truly the Son of God and our Saviour.
Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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