SAINT JOHN, APOSTLE AND EVANGELIST (FEAST)

The Word of life . . . was made visible.

How fortunate John was! The apostle and evangelist whose feast we celebrate today had personally seen, heard, and touched the Lord Jesus (1 John 4:1-4). He encountered the eternal God in the flesh!

Don’t you sometimes wish that you could be with Jesus physically the way John was? But John didn’t believe in Jesus just because he had been physically present with him. He also believed with the eyes of faith.

That’s especially evident in today’s Gospel. When John arrived at the empty tomb, he didn’t see Jesus. Yet when he looked inside and spotted the burial clothes rolled up by themselves, he “saw and believed” (John 20:8). This wasn’t just a matter of deductive reasoning on John’s part. It was a gift that God gave him—the revelation that Jesus had truly risen from the dead.

This is how faith works for all of us. It’s not something we acquire on our own; it is first and foremost a gift from God. Out of sheer love for us, the Lord plants the seed of faith in our hearts when we are baptized. We respond to this gift by watering and fertilizing that seed so that it can grow within us. This clearly isn’t a once-and-done affair. God continues to pour out this gift on us, and our faith strengthens, day by day and year by year, as we continue to nurture it.

The more our faith grows, the more we come to believe that Jesus is truly alive and with us. We may not be able to see, hear, and touch him the way John did, but we can still experience him with the eyes of faith. This is the same awesome gift that enables us to see Jesus and touch him every time we receive the Eucharist!

It’s only two days since we celebrated Jesus’ incarnation. Let’s continue the celebration today by thanking God for the gift of our faith. May we never take it for granted or neglect it! It is this gift that allows us to see Jesus in the manger at Christmas, and it is this gift that allows us to see the risen Jesus, alive and present with us today.

“Lord Jesus, help me to see, hear, and touch you today!”

1 John 1:1-4
Psalm 97:1-2, 5-6, 11-12
John 20:1-8