1-13-20 - Eyewitness

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

We hear a lot about John the Baptist during Advent, and very little the rest of the year. But here he is, in January, called as an eyewitness to verify the identity of Christ. His testimony is remarkable:

The next day [John] saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.”

The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world? That’s a mouthful – signifying from the beginning of the story the sacrificial aspect of Jesus’ mission. And John is very sure who Jesus is – “This is the one I was talking about, the one I said was coming, greater than I. He is the reason I do this!”

While it is generally unwise to define onerself relative to someone else, if that someone else is Jesus, it can offer us clarity. Here’s a prayer experiment:
Sit quietly, maybe light a candle, let yourself get centered. Close your eyes, and picture yourself.
Where are you? What are you wearing? What do you think about what you see? What do you feel?

Then bring Jesus into the picture. Imagine him sitting with you. You don’t have to stress about what he looks like or if you have a visual sense of him – just let him be a presence. How do you look next to him? Who do you see when you look at yourself through his eyes?

If feelings come up that you want to speak, go ahead – that’s prayer, talking with God. If you discern a response from Jesus, that’s great. That’s prayer, God talking with us.

When we look at ourselves with Jesus in the picture, we know at least a couple of things:

• we know we’re not God;
• we know we’re not perfect;
• we know we’re loved.

And when we know those three things about ourselves, we tend to be gentler with ourselves, more compassionate with other people, and a whole lot freer with our love.

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