28 December 2010 – Feast Day of St John

Psalm 97, 98; Proverbs 8:22-30; John 13:20-35

As we celebrate the feast day of St John the disciple and Gospel author, the first lesson draws our attention to the first words of John’s Gospel when he tells us that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Here we see perhaps part of John’s inspiration in Proverbs, extolling the eternality of what we know as wisdom. Christ is the wisdom of God Paul tells us. John celebrated the eternal nature of Jesus, the Word of God by whom, through whom and for whom all things were created. He was there when all things had their beginning and was the agency through which all things came into being, the Word of God brought it all about, the Lord said and whatever He said became reality.

John was the first to know who would betray Jesus. What a horrible moment it must have been to have received Jesus’ answer and then to see Him offer the morsel to Judas. John surely doubted that this could possibly be so and could never have known where this was leading. What we do know, however, is that John completely internalized the commandment of Jesus this night, the rest of the night never became his focus, only this command to love one another. The first epistle John wrote is an extended exposition and injunction to the church to fulfill this commandment in their fellowship. He tells us what love is, that God loved us first and sent His Son, that our love is the love of one who is the beloved and knows it, we return what we have received. Let us commit ourselves to truly loving those in our own fellowship so that we might spur one another to love and good deeds.

Oh sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done marvelous things!