3rd Johnstide 2022, God's Appalling Goodness

Johnstide

John 1:19-34

 

Tissot

This is John's testimony when the Jewish leaders sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" 

Freely and openly, he confessed. He did not deny but confessed, "I am not the Christ [the Anointed]." 

Then they asked him, "Who are you then? Are you Elijah?" 

And he said, "No, I am not." 

"Are you the prophet?" He answered, "No." 

Then they said, "Who are you? What answer are we to give to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?" 

He said in the words of the prophet Isaiah, "I am the voice of one crying in the loneliness: Prepare the way for the Lord [so that the Lord may enter into the inmost soul [or, inmost self]." 

And those sent by the Pharisees asked him, "Why do you baptize if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?" 

John answered them, "I baptize with water. But someone is standing in your midst whom you do not know, who comes after me although he was before me. I am not worthy even to untie the strap of his sandals." 

This took place in Bethany near the mouth of the Jordan, where John was baptizing. 

Grunewald

The next day he [John] sees Jesus
coming to him and says, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes upon himself the burden of the sin of the world. He it is of whom I said: 'After me comes one greater than I  for he existed long before me. Even I did not know him; but for this, I have come, and have baptized with water so that human souls in Israel might become able to experience the revelation of his being." 

And John testified: "I saw how the Spirit descended upon him like a dove from the heavens and remained united with him. I did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend so that it remains united with him, he it is who baptizes with the (breath of the) Holy [or, Healing] Spirit.' And I saw this, and so I testify that this is God's Son." 

3^rd Johnstide

July 14, 2022

John 1:19-34 

Both illness and recovery are mysterious processes. Out of the blue, it seems, we “catch” a cold. We run a fever. No matter what we do, we don’t recover until the illness has run its course. Then healing, equally mysterious, arrives too, on its own. We can experience healing as grace. 

In the seasonal prayer, St. John the Baptist speaks in words of flame. His flame words are first described as health-bearing: all human souls are suffering from an illness, the sickness of being separated from their own divine origin. John’s health-bearing flame word is like a soul-fever, designed to aid the process of healing.

His flame words are also ‘guilt-conscious.’ In the light and heat of the fire of his words, we become aware that we are ill. We were created in God’s image and likeness. Our illness means that we are failing to live up to our truly divine human nature and task. The sickness of sin has laid us low. As one of the mystics, Blessed Angela of Foligno, describes it: 

When I enter that darkness, I cannot

recall a bit about anything human,

or about the God-man.* 

Once awareness does arrive, burning shame and guilt are the result. 

But John’s words are also ‘grace-divining.’ In our state of illness, we look for medicine and healing. And it has indeed been given us. It is in the descending of the true Spirit of the human being, the Healing Spirit, into Jesus, the Christ. He takes upon Himself the burden of the sin, the separation of the world from its divine origins. He is the medicine for our illness. 

The burning fever of the longing for healing is found in the depth of the heart. It is this flame of longing that begins the process of purification, in which the heart rises in love toward our Healer. Health-bearing, guilt-conscious, grace-divining describe the interaction between the human and the divine. 

Again the mystic: 

The [healing] embrace of God puts fire to the soul,

by which the soul entire is felt to burn

for Christ, accompanied by a light so great the soul

suspects the immensity of God’s appalling goodness.**

 

*Blessed Angela of Foligno, “The Darkness,” in Love’s Immensity, by Scott Cairns, p. 89.

**Ibid, “His Blazing Embrace,” pg. 88.

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