Feast of Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist
We Christians celebrate many, many important things about Jesus at Christmas, but perhaps the most important is that we celebrate the Incarnation, the fact that God takes on flesh and becomes one of us. This is so important because we know instinctively that God cannot, in fact, be merely one of the many creatures on the planet, or even merely human. If he were, he would just be that thing, and not capable of being the creator of the universe, the fashioner of every single human being, the lover of all of us. A god who was merely one of the things on our planet isn't capable of being God.
And yet, God does, in fact, become merely a man, without leaving divinity behind. For divinity to confine itself to being a human body - a body that hurts, that thirsts, and weeps, and dies - is amazing.
But it is even more amazing and important for us, because we are bodily creatures. We don't learn things or know things, except in our ability to comprehend them with our bodies. Even our thinking and our minds are bodily. So how do we come to know and love God except that he does become human, all the while remaining divine, and so shows us what it might mean to have a relationship with God, to "become perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect."
This is what John celebrates in today's first reading (1 John 1:1-4). He emphasizes the importance of bodies for knowing Jesus: "what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked upon and touched with our hands....." And what we have seen and even touched has been there from the beginning, and is the Word of Life.
This letter of John's is paired with a resurrection story from today's gospel (John 20:1a and 2-8). The "other disciple" is traditionally understood as being John himself, writing about himself and so not naming himself. Here we see one of the ways John touched and saw and believed in Jesus. Here we see why John names Jesus as the Word of Life, because he knows Jesus and he has seen this evidence of the resurrection.
What is the result of knowing Jesus embodied in this way? John does not close himself off from other people, keeping his secret. He wants to share his testimony to all who will listen so that our "joy might be complete." Each single one of us is invited into fellowship with God, and being in fellowship with God includes being in fellowship with John and with all the other apostles and saints and witnesses. In short, being in fellowship with God means becoming part of the Body of Christ. The more of us there are together, shining in the light of Jesus, the more our own joy becomes complete.
In this year of being the Body of Christ and in this joyful season of Christmas, let us be especially thankful for our bodies and for being able to be part of the Body of Christ.
- Jana M. Bennett