THE WORD
Ac 20,17-27 / Jn 17,1-11
Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him. Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ. I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began. “I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.”
IN OTHER WORDS
One of the reasons why Jesus allowed John the Baptist to baptize Him despite John’s reluctance was to convey to all of us that he is “Emmanuel” (God is with us), that despite his being divine, he proved that he is not a distant God but that he is a God who is with us and among us.
Thus, the Baptism of Jesus was an event that correlates well in the Gospel today particularly with his “connecting” with the Father. Such an encounter is primarily to tell his Father that the decision to send Him to the world because of so great a love of God for humanity (cf John 3:16) was not in vain. Jesus became word incarnate, He became the Word made esh and made his dwelling among us, He became one among us except sin because that was his vocation: to do the will of his Father.
Although the last part of the Gospel signals the “return” of Jesus to the Father, it is significantly a manifestation of how God in Jesus willingly and humbly sacrificed his life so that we would have life and have it to the full. One challenge of the Gospel today is how we can be active partakers of that love of Jesus and share it to others.
- Fr. Jun Javines, SVD | USC, Cebu
The Word in other words 2016
An annual project of Logos Publications, The WORD in Other Words Bible Diary contains daily scripture readings and reflections written by priest, brothers, and sisters of the three congregations founded by St. Arnold Janssen (the SVD, SSpS, and SSpSAP). It hopes to serve as a daily companion to readers who continually seek the correlation of the Word of God and human experience.
