Reflection
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”
John 1:29-30
In Jesus of Nazareth…one human being is wholly and irreversibly responsive to God’s self-giving love. In Jesus, one of us, part of the universe and its history, is so radically open to and identified with God, that we can rightly say that he is the Wisdom of God, the Son of God. Like us, Jesus is the product of biological evolution. Like us, he is made from stardust. Like us, Jesus is interrelated to all other creatures in one global community of Earth. In Jesus, the movement of self-transcendence that has been going on throughout evolutionary history reaches its irreversible climax. In Jesus’ complete yes to God, there is a radical and unique self-transcendence of creation into God.
Ecology at the Heart of Faith, Denis Edwards
Prayer
Here am I, O God; I come to do your will.
Action
Read some new theological insights into the life and meaning of Jesus.
Suggested Readings
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
John 1-29
If Jesus had been only a mystic, healer, and wisdom teacher, he almost certainly would not have been executed. Rather, he was killed because of his politics – because of his passion for God’s justice.
Marcus Borg
The Crucified and Risen Christ uses the mistakes of the past to create a positive future, a future of redemption instead of retribution. He does not eliminate or punish the mistakes. He uses them for transformative purposes. People formed by such love are indestructible. Forgiveness might just be the very best description of what God’s goodness engenders in humanity.
Richard Rohr
To follow Jesus is to be a wholemaker, essentially to love the world into new being and life.
Ilia Delio
The humanity of Jesus is the key that unlocks the secrets of divinity, not the opposite, as we have believed for much of the Christian era. The mystery of God becomes transparent in the mystery of the human.
Diarmuid O’Murchu
Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven.
N.T.Wright
The message of Jesus shows us that the dignity of the human race is not found in its ability to control and dominate the earth, nor ius it found in the marvels of technology. Rather, our dignity is found in our intimate loving relationships within and among ourselves and with the whole community of species.
Cletus Wessels, OP