Second Sunday Reflection: Vendetta Is Ended
If you wish to listen to this reflection, do so here https://www.spreaker.com/episode/52389371
Franciscan Reflections from the Hermitage – Second Sunday in Ordinary Time – Vendetta Is Ended – John 1:29-34
And when the Advocate comes he will prove the world wrong concerning sin and concerning righteousness and concerning judgement… John 16:8
I know… I know that I know… this is the Truth… by my words and by the life that I live, I testify to this Truth. God looks upon me through the eyes of the Beloved… looks at you and me as the Beloved. In this new vision of Love, the least of us are now cherished Beloved beyond the greatest standing in self-righteousness before the Law.
But we too often forget, lulled into absconding from that Truth of the Spirit within… no longer seeing our beauty as the Beloved, being poisoned by a constant feeding of deceit and diversions… and becoming addicted to our suffering and cherished illusions. This is the great deceit… not knowing that I do not know.
No longer able to discern the difference between right and wrong, forgetful of what we ought to do or delight in this Truth… and finally unable to feel remorse. “I’m only doing what everyone does… I’m only following the party line… I’m only following orders.
Fast forward, and even this same John the Baptist gets it wrong, doubting and scandalised at the gratuity offered by the Lamb of God. Our God walks with us through the history of who we are, whom we are becoming, and the final emblazoned glory of whom we were made to be as God’s Beloved family that is revealed in the Christ event and the ongoing process of Christogenesis.
This is a process that moves us through the blinding darkness of unknowing into new insight, letting go of old paradigms and patterns that have kept us so fearfully enslaved and leading always into reactive violence or avoidance and compromise.
This is especially true within ourselves where we are called to face our own violence, our fear, and our illusions, bringing them into the light and allowing the Love of God within us to transform us also into that pattern of Christ.
Jesus the Christ takes into himself the worst of the sickness of evil and violence and transforms it into wondrous new life. Jesus shows us that it is not in reactionary defence, pre-emptive strikes, retaliation or even by avoidance of that evil. Evil and the sickness of sin are overcome by fusing it within ourselves with that Love which is at the core of our being.
This is the Way, the only way, for both you and I to transform evil into good… this is the pattern of redemption for all of humanity so that in Christ we are no longer the victim, no longer helpless, for he has given us victory over death… victory over our addiction to our suffering and our victim-hood.
Jesus shows us on the cross how to hold the pain and let it transform us, rather than pass it on to others around us. Love conquers violence as it conquers death. When we understand this we are truly set free.
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