Lectionary # 19. Second Sunday after Easter

Scripture: Lectionary # 19. Sirach 24:1-4.8-12. Psalm 147: 12-13.14-15.19-20. Epehesians 1:3-6.15-18. John 1:1-18. Wisdom is our guiding light and theme for this Sunday, the second after Christmas. We are lead by the Spirit through this gift of Wisdom to reflect more quietly and profoundly on the mystery of the Incarnation. All of today's readings have this theme of wisdom thus enabling us to meditate upon the gift of God's Son to us as Wisdom Incarnate. The first reading from Sirach (which is one of the deutero-canonical books of Wisdom) encourages us to think within the community of faith to which we belong. Wisdom emanates from God's gift to a people Israel. To us as Christian believers it comes to us as community through the gift of the Word become flesh (John 1:14). The Psalm encourages us to pray with a spirit of wisdom within the praises of a worshipping community in a sacred place. Paul in the circular letter of Ephesians meant for all of the Christian communities of its time offers us further development through wisdom: "May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, grant you as spirit of wisdom and insight to know him clearly." We are then ready once again to turn to the most profound wisdom hymn of the Prologue of John where we are led to contemplate the mystery of God's absolute self-giving love in the gift of the Word become flesh who lives among us and who, so to speak, pitches his tent among us as a community. We already know from Paul's earliest account of the history of salvation that this Word of God was born of a Jewish woman in the chronological time of Caesar Augustus and that we are made partakers of the Word's Wisdom and thus become sons and daughters of God (Gal. 4:4-5; Luke 2:1-15; Gen. 1:27). The beautiful prologue summarizes the Gospel of Revelation and acts as an overture for the development of not only our share in revelation through the Spirit's gift of wisdom in our baptism, but also through the great themes of faith in the person of Jesus and love of God in Jesus. These form the first and second part of the Revelatory Gospel named after John, the beloved disciple. As we read the final verses of the Prologue we come to understand that God's revelation is one of love that is filled with wisdom. The Word is that Wisdom Personified and we come to live out the image and likeness of God by following his Son's gift of self. That is the mystery of God's Wisdom bound with love. Amen.