New Year and New Song

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today resonate with our mindset at the end of a calendar year in at least two ways. We recall the past year as we focus on marking it’s end. We contemplate how the experiences of the past year might be the seed for some change or positive development in our lives. The first letter of John looks at how some members of the community have left and how they are teaching heretical concepts which are in conflict with the Truth revealed in Christ through the Holy Spirit. The Gospel of John begins with the proclamation of the Word which is flesh among us. This Incarnation is the both the motive for Christmas celebration and the daily source of Life for the believer. The Logos spoken of by John is a development of philosophical thought in the ancient world as experienced by the disciple who was called to Jesus community early and who lived the longest with Christians after the Resurrection. Don Schwager notes that when this Gospel was written the vast majority of Christians were no longer converts from Jewish communities, but people who lived in a world dominated by the culture, thought, and worldview of Greece and Rome. John appealed to their powers of reason and reflection to consider who Jesus claimed to be. Reason and reflection around the deeply profound question of God who is transcendent and immanent is the subject of Greek and Roman philosophers. The Council of Nicea wrote the Christian creed on the action of God becoming flesh among us. Barbara Dilly asks how we should respond to this daily opportunity to live through the gift of grace upon grace in communion with the Word made flesh?. We need to contemplate the question for next year: “What is the new song the Lord wants from us?”