A reading of the holy gospel according to John. In the beginning was the word, and the word was in God's presence, and the word was God. He was present to God in the beginning. Through him, all things came into being, and apart from him, nothing came to be. Whatever came to be in him found life, life for the light of men.
The light shines on in darkness, a darkness that did not overcome it. There was a man named John sent by God who came as a witness to testify to the light so that through him all men might believe, but only to testify to the light for he himself was not the light. The real light, which gives light to every man, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and through him, the world was made. Yet the world did not know him.
To his own, he came, yet his own did not accept him. Any who did accept him, he empowered to become children of God. These are they who believe in his name, who were begotten not by blood, nor by carnal desire, nor by man's willing it, but by God. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. And we have seen his glory, the glory of an only son coming from the father, filled with enduring love.
John testified to him by proclaiming, this is he of whom I said, the one who comes after me ranks ahead of me, for he was before me. Of his fullness, we have all had a share, love following upon love. For while the law was a gift through Moses, this enduring love came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God, the only son ever at the father's side who has revealed him, and this is the gospel of the Lord.
In the name of the father, of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen. I was going to say not so many years ago, but it's more years than I like to count. This excerpt from Saint opening of his gospel, used to be recited at the end of every mass. It you Before it came to occupy that position, it was used as a prayer by those who had received holy communion and who remained after the mass to make their thanks thanksgiving.
These, as you realize, were are far off days. Then this excerpt, this beginning of of John's gospel from being part of a thanksgiving for church. And church church was church. The very excerpt, which is quite a long excerpt, was read. So this particular this particular excerpt from Saint John's had a had a place place of unusual extraordinary dignity, and it has had it outside of the mass.
To many people, this is a mighty attractive statement about the nature of God, the nature of man, Saint John the baptizer's position, and above all, the meaning of Jesus Christ for us, our savior. Now there's one point here I'd like just to mention to you. You cannot possibly escape, you can't possibly escape the insistence of John here upon light. We cannot you cannot neglect it. It's too obvious that John is is insisting how God reveals himself as it were in light to each one of us.
Now let's remember this because it's extremely significant point, extremely fundamental. Because this idea that is God as light revealing himself to man was taken up very much in the early church. And above all, it came into Western Christendom through Saint Augustine of Hippo with his whole theory of knowledge that that our individual personal knowledge is in some way associated with the divine illumination. Now this is a fact. Then let me add another fact that Saint Augustine, at least until the thirteenth century, was the dominant thinker, was the dominant theologian.
He was the speaker for orthodoxy of Western Christendom until the thirteenth century margin. That is until you had introduction of the philosophical ideas based more upon Aristotle than upon Augustine and Plato. And that that new current, that new wave of thinking which started in the twelfth century, and notice again it started with Mohammedans and with Jews. They are the ones who brought Aristotle into the Western world, but it was taken up chiefly by men like Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, and they incorporated their Christian thinking more in an Aristotelian concept of knowledge. But when I say that Augustine dominated until the thirteenth century, I don't wish to say that it ended at the thirteenth century.
After all, we still say, we still pray for light. We still pray that we may be enlightened. What are we praying for? If we don't mean it. And so, however we may insist, some of us at least, that human knowledge is anchored in experience, nevertheless, those who even a man like Aquinas, he would be the first to admit that it's possible for our God almighty to influence our thinking in some way or other.
And so this whole idea of light and of God's influence, it's it's extremely primitive in the church. As I say, it can't get more primitive than what we have here in in Saint John. But now we must bring in to same time. To Gnosticism. We G n o s t I c I s m, Gnosticism.
It's something we ought to be acquainted with more than it's just a Greek word because it was the basic heresy, the basic error in the early church. Now if there's one thing we ought to get our thinking straight about is this, because you say a doctrine is an error, because you say a doctrine is heretical, that is no imputation of insincerity on the part of the heretic or the person who is in error. It says nothing about them as being insincere. For the most part, people are utterly sincere in in being in error, just as sincere as those who have the truth. So it isn't a matter of sincerity and insincerity.
It's not a matter of being a traitor. It's not a matter matter of trying to mislead people intentionally, playing the part of the devil, and that's all. That's ridiculous. So this idea of gnosticism is tied in with this whole idea of knowledge. And if this sounds theoretical to you, I assure you it is theoretical, of course.
But it it was a terrific disturbance in the early church and and Saint John himself in this first letter is talking about Gnosticism that you just heard read. Because you see, it's extremely a fine point. Where and how do you know God's speaking to you individually? What is your test? What are your cry what are your criteria?
See, it's extremely sensitive. It's one thing to say it can happen. It's another thing to say it has happened. How do you know? What is the test?
How can you deal with it? How can you work with it? How can you demonstrate it? How can you validate it? And so this great problem because Gnosticism, you see, was an attempt to bypass the church of Jesus.
This is the earliest days of the church, the very first century that you had an effort to bypass the teaching authority handed down by the apostles one or two generations after. It's an extremely extremely sensitive issue, and it's with us today. It's with us today, very much so with us today, because we come back to this basic question, was there a Jesus Christ? That's point number one. Was there?
Did he live? Secondly, who was he? Thirdly, did he establish a church and give it the treasure of his truth? Did he or didn't he? If he did and if it was intended to serve humanity, human beings, it had to pre to persevere.
It had to endure in time. Has it? To 1979, the very last day of the year? Has it or hasn't it? If it has, then its voice should be heard.
And if it is heard, that voice is speaking with the authority of its founder. We can't escape the logic of this. We cannot. On the other hand, logic doesn't speak to the heart. It speaks to the mind.
We know that. And notice who's quoted so much today, Pascal. The heart has reasons that the mind knows not of. That's Pascal in his pensei. That's the man you hear quoted today and it's a very deceptive doctrine, and yet it's very true.
It's very misleading, at the same time it's fundamental because even a man like Newman said nobody has ever been converted by a syllogism. So we are in a complex situation, aren't we? We are indeed. Do we need a guide? I say we do.
Have we a guide? I say we have. It's the living voice of Jesus Christ speaking to his church. In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.