SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
This weekend we have the second Sunday in ordinary time. Christmas and new year are now a distant memory as we continue our spiritual journey. In the Gospel reading this Sunday we hear about the meeting between Jesus and John the Baptist at the Jordan River. We hear John telling us Look, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. He is the one who I spoke about Yes, I have seen and I am the witness that he is the Chosen One of God.’
The first Christian communities saw a clear difference between John’s baptism that immersed people in the river Jordan and Jesus’ baptism that communicated his own Spirit, to cleanse, renew and transform the heart of his followers. Without that Spirit of Jesus, the Church would simply close up shop and die. Only the Spirit of Jesus can put more truth and life into today’s Christianity and lead us to recover our true identity, letting go of paths that lead us further and further away from the Gospel and what it teaches.
Only that Holy Spirit of Jesus can give us light and energy to fire up the renewal that we need today so that we can also become Christ’s authoritative witnesses in the world. A believer can only be an authoritative witness if he or she lives in harmony with two of the Baptist’s evangelical qualities. Firstly, knowledge of Christ that is cultivated through prayer, the sacramental and ecclesial life and good friendships. Secondly, the constant attribute of the person who goes in search of the Jesus is the virtue of humility because in everyone’s life, Christ must increase and we must decrease. We have all been baptized; through our Baptism we have been called to be witnesses to Jesus the chosen one of god. We are asked to point away from ourselves to the lord; as we lead others to know the person of Jesus. None of us comes to him alone we all know people who help us along on our own faith journeys. Most people are moved when others share with them what really matters in their lives. Perhaps we have lost the courage to say any more about what matters to us as people who take faith seriously perhaps we doubt if anyone will care and yet so many do. We should take courage to share what we believe.
With Saint John Henry Newman, we know that we believe because we love. In the power of that love, the Love of God made real in his Son let us share our belief with each other and everyone else as well. So that we can say with John the Baptist that Jesus is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, he is the Chosen One of God.’ Let us follow him,
Fullerton T 