Page 51 – St Joseph's Winsford

Gospel 03/01/2021 (Page 51)

John 1: 1-5, 9-14

The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word.
The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one.

Everything was created through him; nothing—not one thing!— came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.

The Life-Light was the real thing: Every person entering Life he brings into Light.
He was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn’t even notice.
He came to his own people, but they didn’t want him.
But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said,
He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves.
These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex-begotten.

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.

Gospel Reflection

We wouldn’t expect God to mix with us by becoming flesh. But the Word became flesh, God became one of us to convince us that God does care about us.

Because the Word became flesh Jesus was like us in every way except sin. He even had the same emotions that we do.

He loved other people, Martha, Mary and Lazarus (John 11:15), his disciple John and the rich young man (Mark 10:21).

He cried when he hurt a lot; when his friend Lazarus died (John 11:35-36) and before entering Jerusalem when he knew that the city would not accept him as the Messiah (Luke 19:41-44).

He enjoyed social occasions. In Luke’s Gospel in particular we read of Jesus attending many dinners (7:36; 11:37; 14:1), so much so that a rhyme was made up about him, ‘a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners.’ (Luke 7:34) Jesus felt pity for people when he saw them suffering (Matt 14:13-14), so when they were hungry he multiplied the loaves and fish (Matt 15:32-39).

He got angry when people used the Temple for the wrong purpose (Matt 21:12-17).

He needed companionship, so he took Peter, James and John aside with him on many occasions (Mark 5:37; 14:33) and John was his very close friend (John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7,20).

At the end of a hard day Jesus fell asleep in the boat, he was tired like all of us (Mark 4:38).

He felt fear before his passion, ‘Father let this cup pass me by’ (Matt 26:39) and in John 12:27 he says, ‘now my soul is troubled’. Imagine Jesus saying, ‘now my soul is troubled’. When John says the Word became flesh, he really means it. After all, he had seen Jesus and had been his very close friend. As he says in our Gospel today,

The Word was made flesh,
he lived among us,
and we saw his glory…

The Word became flesh, and was like us in every way except sin, to convince us that God does care about us.

In Gospel

The friendly parish.

Gospel 03/01/2021 (Page 51)

John 1: 1-5, 9-14

Gospel Reflection

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