Sunday, 10/2/16
The disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith, and that
has me thinking of a trick I have for strengthening my faith. What I do every
afternoon, is that I spend twenty minutes meditating on the opening words of
John’s Gospel. We older people remember when it was read at the end of every
Mass. We used to call it the “Last Gospel.” I take it in segments.
First, “In the
beginning was the Word. 2. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. 3. All
things came to be through him. 4. In him was Life, and the Life was the light
of the world. 5. All who accept him become children of God. 6. “The Word became
flesh. 7. He pitched his tent with ours. 8. We have seen his glory.
I wish I had time and space to tell you a fuller meaning
that God imparts to us through each of those segments. Let me touch on just two
of them.
First. When we say, “In the beginning was the Word” we are
referring to the common Greek belief that throughout all of nature there was a
hidden force like what we refer to as Mother Nature. They called that force “the
Logos,” and we translate that to “the Word.”
Our modern understanding of the molecular composition of all
of nature and of the DNA roots of us humans
is far more complex than the Greeks could have imagined. Science tells us that
each of our bodies is composed of five trillion independent cells. They tell us
that each of those cells is made up of millions of atoms of Oxygen, with each atom
having eight electrons circling in identical orbits around its nucleus.
Afternoons, as I gaze out on God’s marvelous, at his orderly
universe, I marvel over how Jesus told me to address the great God as Father.
From Verse 7 on that Chapter one of John’s Gospel begins to
tell us that just as the Father, through Moses led the people to their geographical
Promised Land, so the Son leads us his people to our Promised Land of heaven.
Moses began the
Exodus story by setting up a Meeting Tent for the Father, so our second Exodus story begins with Jesus
pitching his tent with us.
When Moses set up God’s tent, it immediately glowed with his
glory. When Jesus set up his body as his tent Jpohn said, “We have seen his
glory.”
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