I DID NOT KNOW HIM

PRAYER MOMENT 

Saturday 3 January 2015

I DID NOT KNOW HIM

             

Pause. Enter into the stillness of God within.

Reading: “I did not know him myself and yet it was to reveal him to Israel that I came.” (John 1:29-34)

Reflection. It may strike us as odd that within the space of few lines John says twice, ‘I did not know him myself.’ Maybe we can say he knew him as his cousin. They probably often met at each other’s homes. But John did not grasp who he was. And this is one of John, the evangelist’s, themes: how do we come to know Jesus. It has to be in the same way John, his cousin, came to know him – through a gift which we call faith. The New Testament is clear about this. All the disciples grew into faith, including Mary. That dawning of faith ‘like the dewfall’ is available to all people if they are introduced to it by parents, teachers, books, or experiences. There are many who ‘do not know him.’ Those of us who say we know him are called, like John, to make him known by how we live.

Prayer. Lord, help us to make you known by the witness of our lives. May we be ‘the salt of the earth’ for others. Amen.  

David Harold-Barry SJ