Thursday, December 29, 2022
Fifth Day of Christmas
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
In his steps
The way we may be sure that we know Jesus is to keep his commandments. Whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him. We may know we are in union with Jesus as we walk just as he walked.
John knew Jesus personally. John called himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” John stood with Jesus’ mother Mary at the foot of Jesus’ crucifying cross and Jesus said to them:
Woman, behold your son. Then he looked at John and said to him, “Son, behold your mother.”
John knows he can only describe these experiences, not duplicate them for us. He can tell his listeners stories as best he can. He can encourage us to love one another. But really, what he wants to do is somehow inspire us to find our own way to Jesus’ side and put our own shoes in Jesus’ footsteps. A hundred years had passed (and now two thousand years). How can he do his?
When John remembers Jesus, he remembered how Jesus loved him as a brother. John trusted Jesus in every moment to protect him, listen to him, and put him before himself. So, he wonders, if my friends love each other like that, will they be in union with Jesus like I was?
John knows the two most important commandments. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. They are not new. But yet they ARE new because Jesus brought those commandments new life.
The old commandment is the word you have heard. And yet I DO write a new commandment to you, which holds true in him and among you, for the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining. Whoever loves his brother remains in the light, and there is nothing in him to cause a fall.
Can I love my brother the same without Jesus as when he walks beside me? NO. When Jesus guides me to walk in his footsteps, his love changes me from the inside out. I feel safe. I AM safe. Then if my sister and my brother fail to protect me, listen to me, or put themselves before me, I can handle it. John tells me to keep walking with Jesus, who never betrays me in any of these ways.
Jesus is faithful. And so, John says, I can and must be faithful to my brother and sister. Not in my own strength, but in the strength of Jesus. In the light of Jesus, the darkness is as light to me. John said it best:
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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