Reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Some of you will recognize this as the the gospel that used to be read or recited at the end of the mass. 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 dark 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 John 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 who he was. 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 willingness 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 ever are world. Has was a gift through Moses, the 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 and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. It is true that this, reading from Saint John got attached to the mass as a fitting prayer, following holy communion. That's how it got its place.
And then, of course, when we revised the ritual, it was dropped. Whether that was smart or not, I don't know. But they thought though it was dropped. There's one it's a very mysterious read. Saint John, you know, is not the easiest for the evangelist to read by a long shot.
A very good friend of mine, now dead, a published poet, a very good poet, and I suppose he would call himself a Christian. I'm not sure. But, anyway, he we got talking one day, and he said that he that the book of revelations, that's by Saint John, was his favorite book of the New Testament. And I said, well, John, why is that your most favorite book? Because, you know, of all the books, that's the hardest to understand.
And he turned to me and said, because you can't understand it. Well, of course, if that's your criterion for liking things, he won by he won by about four or five good lengths. There's a lot of things mysterious about this reading, but one thing about it, among many others, is it's a whole summary, a whole summary of the drama of of our of Christ's relationship to god, the incarnation, his coming into this world, and and and a thumbnail sketch of his own existence in this world. Now, the one of the ideas that keeps coming out, you can't escape this. I believe in emphasizing the obvious.
I believe in dealing with facts. You read all the four evangelists, and there's among other other things, but there's one that comes out that Christ came unto his own and his own received him not. Christ came unto and his own received him not. That is a fact. They put him on the cross because he blasphemed, and the Romans because he was charged with sedition.
Now, whenever I read this and all remember how our blessed lord remember Christ was never so severe with anybody as he was with the scribes and the pharisees and the the men learned in the law. And yet they were the cream of the cream. They were the they were the top notch notch echelon of good god fearing, god living, god preaching men. They were they were the top. And yet for nobody, did Christ have such a clear language as he had for them?
Woe to you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites. And generally, generally, when he spoke to the crowds, it was the crowd who wept with Jesus. It was the learned, the socially elite, the leaders of the people, the good living men. These were good living men, remember. They kept the law down to the tiniest little tittle, which is the the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
Let's not forget that. And yet it was to a to a to a robber on a cross. And Christ said, today, you will be with me in paradise. Notice, that's the only person in the life of Christ who got such a message from the only person. And that's to this thief or whoever he was who was crucified with Christ.
This day, you will be with me in paradise. Now the point is the older I get, the more I see of life, and I didn't see much of life until I came came to Holy Cross in '68. I know that. I was in the classroom from that time I was about six until I came here at the age of 65. If there's anything that I feel is difficult difficult for for all all of of us us, is to recognize Jesus Christ.
You know how our lord said, you know, feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty and all that and said, well, lord, when did we do that to you? And he said, when you did it to the least of my my brethren. But and the other said, well, we didn't see you. We didn't see you at all. It is difficult sometimes to recognize Jesus Christ as God in our lives.
Very difficult. Very difficult. And let's face it. Those who were in our Lord's time, some remember, it was not until after the resurrection. Let's keep to keep keep these facts in mind.
It wasn't until after the resurrection that the disciples of our lord thought of Jesus Christ as anything but the messiah who was to restore the kingdom of Israel. That is the physical, worldly, secular kingdom of Israel. They had no conception of Christ as the son of god who was going to whose kingdom was not of this world until after the resurrection. Think of that. They didn't recognize Christ either.
It's not easy to recognize Jesus all the time. Of course, there are periods in our life as Christians when it's easy to see Jesus. It's it's so easy to feel close to him. And I, for one, have a great mistrust of this business of feeling. You can't run your life on it, and yet plenty of people do.
I very well, not it's not so recent, but I got a book on anger. Very serious book on this great problem of anger. The very first sentence is that we are beings whose lives are run by our feelings. You know, that's a far cry from the definition of man as a rational animal, isn't it? And yet, this is a fact of life.
And this is where we need light. You notice how Saint John keeps pushing this business of light. I am the light of the world. Light you know, it's a very popular, very, very, very much repeated figure of speech that that we are enlightened by God. And it is so true.
It is so true. We need that light, and we need it when the darkness is most opaque. That's when we need it most. That's when we need to see Jesus walking on the water, and it's not easily done. Because lots of time when we feel our boat is sinking and we look out and we don't see any Jesus walking on any water.
We feel utterly alone, utterly alone, almost unabandoned and deserted. That's how we feel. And lo and behold you, that's exactly the way Jesus Christ felt on the cross. Exactly. Exactly.
It was Christ who said from the cross, my god and remember, this is the son of god. My god, my god, why have you abandoned me? I tell you, I can never that that sends sends chills down my spine. I mean that serious. Now if Christ on the cross experienced it, what have we a right to expect?
That life is gonna be fun and games, and I've said yesterday that we go to heaven on a feather bed. It's not the way it is at all. But it's terribly important that when the going is roughest, that we realize that we realize that it's no test of my faith that I can't see Jesus walking on the water. It's no test of my faith that I don't feel close to Jesus and all of this stuff. A lot of it is pure rhetoric.
Pure rhetoric, if there is such a thing as pure rhetoric. What matters is do I clean? Do I say not my will but thine be done? That's the check. That's the test.
You'll say that is a pretty severe doctrine you're talking. Well, my friends, it isn't nearly as severe as the doctrine Jesus Christ taught. Not nearly. I spent a lot of last week just collecting the text from the New Testament. I had a whole page of them.
I read only two or three of them yesterday. The doctrine of Jesus Christ is a hard doctrine. It's not fun and games. It's not all light and singing hallelujahs. It's crying out with Jesus Christ from the cross, my god my god, why have you abandoned me?
Boy, if that isn't a mystery, I never have heard one. That the son of god, one with the father, he was abandoned by his father. It's it's awful. I mean, awful in the in the literal sense of the word, awe inspiring. And if Christ went through it, have we any right to think that we are not going to experience it?
But you see, this is not as I say, this is not a doctrine of despair. The cross is not a a drama of despair because we know behind the cross, there's the resurrection. Do we know that? So when we look at the cross, we just don't see the end of something. We simply see the beginning of something, and that's where we come in.
But if we stand at the cross and hear Jesus speaking and we see the end to which he came, remember, we have every right and obligation to stand at the open grave where he was where he was. And where the good news went forth, he is risen, he is not here. So that we are in fact we are not Christians of the cross, but we are Christians of the open, that disturb the broken tomb, the empty tomb of Jesus Christ. We are in very fact, hallelujah, Christians. Name of the father, the son, and holy spirit.
Amen.