Today is the feast of St. John, the apostle, who is the great mystical writer of the Gospel that starts with "In the beginning," the same phrase that begins the book of Genesis. St. John also wrote about his visions of the risen Christ in heaven in the Book of Revelation.
St. John the Apostle and Evangelist was with Christ at His Transfiguration and the only apostle who stayed at the foot of Christ's Cross, along with His mother and a few other women. Christ gave His mother to St. John (and through John to us also), at the foot of the Cross.
These words from the start of St. John's Gospel are fitting for today, as we continue to celebrate the birth of Christ on the third day of Christmas: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."
John's Gospel begins with a unique perspective among all the Gospels. His Gospel does not start—as others do—with Christ's earthly lineage or His birth. Instead St. John moves away from earth and time into eternity to show us the mystical reality of who Jesus really is. The way his Gospel soars above the things of earth is one of the reasons behind St. John's symbolic representation as the Eagle. Because he experienced "in the spirit" great revelations of Christ in heaven, the eagle is his symbol also—because Christian writers believed the eagle is able to look directly into the sun.St. Augustine wrote this in his "Homilies on the Gospel of John":
"The evangelist John himself looked to heaven and earth when wishing to speak of the Son of God; he looked, and rose above them all. He thought on the thousands of angelic armies above the heavens; he thought, and, like the eagle soaring beyond the clouds, his mind overpassed the whole creation: he rose beyond all that was great, and arrived at that which was greater than all; and said, 'In the beginning was the Word.'"
St. John wrote in inspired poetic phrases about Jesus' cosmic identity as the Word of God.
The Word is eternally one with the Father.
The Word was with God.
The Word was God.
By the Word all things were made, and without this Word nothing was made.
Think of it! Jesus is the Word that God spoke when He created the universe and everything in it, starting with, "Let there be Light."
And the Word was the Light of the world. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us.
I especially love this gospel because it had a powerful effect on me when I was looking back in my thirties at Christianity more than a decade after I'd fallen away as a college freshman from my Catholic faith that I had sincerely believed as a child. A young college girl, a member of Campus Crusade for Christ, God bless her, started meeting with me for a Bible study of the Gospel of John. The poetry of the unique opening to that Gospel and the sense of divine realities it evokes helped convert me back to belief in Christ in my thirties.
God's Word came to live among us, and to those who receive Him, He gave the power to be made Sons of God, sharing in His divine nature—by adoption!
We too quickly skip past that striking promise—that we mere humans who receive Christ will be given the power to be be made sons (and daughters) of God.
We can glimpse of what that will be like for us when we look at Mary, the Mother of God, who was the first to fully receive that promise to share in God's divinity.
The Blessed Virgin Mary, one of whose titles is Theotokos, God-bearer, was the first to receive Christ, in her case literally in her womb. She became the holy Ark of the New Covenant.
To prepare for her motherhood of the Son of God, by a special dispensation she was the only child of Adam and Eve to be redeemed by Christ's future sacrifice when she was immaculately conceived. Christ spent thirty years with her before He began His public ministry, and for these and many reasons her union with God is therefore unique.
She alone is sinless and her body was taken up into heaven with Christ. She must be the first created human to be deified, which means she is now like God as far as it is possible for any creature to share in the divinity of the Creator. From her many appearances, we know she is being used as God’s messenger to continue His work of salvation.
In St. Dionysius the Aeropagite, who was converted by St. Paul in Athens, we have a witness of how even when Mary was still on earth, her glory was already great, and incidentally how St. John shone also with Christ's glory.
This story was preserved by the early Christian historian, Eusebius of Caesarea in his Ecclesiastical history. While Mary was still alive, Saint Dionysius traveled from Athens to Jerusalem to meet Her. He wrote to his teacher the Apostle Paul:
“I witness by God, that besides the very God Himself, there is nothing else filled with such divine power and grace. No one can fully comprehend what I saw. I confess before God: when I was with John, who shone among the Apostles like the sun in the sky, when I was brought before the countenance of the Most Holy Virgin, I experienced an inexpressible sensation. Before me gleamed a sort of divine radiance which transfixed my spirit. I perceived the fragrance of indescribable aromas and was filled with such delight that my very body became faint, and my spirit could hardly endure these signs and marks of eternal majesty and heavenly power. The grace from her overwhelmed my heart and shook my very spirit. If I did not have in mind your instruction, I should have mistaken Her for the very God. It is impossible to stand before greater blessedness than this which I beheld.”
Others who saw her in apparitions after her body was assumed to heaven, such as the converted non-practicing Jew Roy Schoeman, have also said she appears so glorious that they are tempted to worship her—but she always makes it clear that what they see of glory in her is all from her Son.
There is much to ponder here. And all of us who receive Him and are born of God have a similar future to anticipate.St. John 1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to give testimony of the light, that all men might believe through him. He was not the light, but was to give testimony of the light. That was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in his name. Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.
Top image: My photo of St. John at the Cross, at the site of Christ's crucifixion at Golgotha. Below: St. John's symbol the Eagle.
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