Feast of St. John, apostle and evangelist
(I John 1:1-4; John 20:1a.2-8)
In the first couple centuries after Christ, Christians had
to contend with the heresy of Docetism.
Evidently finding incredible the apostles’ testimony that the Son of God
actually became human, Docetists believed that he only had the semblance of a
man but remained a spirit. In the
section from the Letter to John which we read today, the writer offers a
striking rebuttal. “What we…touched with
our hands,” the author says, “concerns the Word of life.”
Today we are challenged by the contrary heresy that Jesus
was not God at all but only human.
Proponents of this way of thinking acknowledge Jesus’ wisdom and
goodness but do not think him worth of implicit following. According to these detractors, Jesus is just
one in a series of many holy men and women including Buddha, Gandhi, and maybe
Mary Baker Eddy.
Some of us may be attracted to the contemporary rejection of
the Christian claim of Jesus’ divinity as freeing faith from mythical elements. It also dismisses, in effect, our fellowship
with the Father and the Son and the promise of eternal life found in the Letter
of John. We do not concur with the idea
that Christian belief is mythical. It is
not so much because such a stance takes away our hope but, more to the point,
because it conflicts directly with what those who, like John, actually knew
Jesus have told us about him.
