Making the Leap
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December 13, 2020“There is one among you whom you do not recognize.” (Jn 1:26)
John is one whose way of life and dress sets him apart from others. He is a prophet and “more than a prophet” (Mt 11:9), called to point beyond himself to the one who is coming after, the one who is greater. This One, who was before and is always coming, is also here, now.
“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn 1:29)
Monastics readily identify with this prophetic role – a voice crying out in the wilderness, a finger pointing to the one who is not seen. Our manner of life and dress find meaning in this pointing to the one who is not seen. All Christians, however, are called to point to the one in their midst who is not seen, but who makes all things new.
“Blessed are you who have not seen and yet believe.” (Jn 20:29)
Jesus walks anonymously among us as he did among the people of his own time and place. One who knows how to recognize him can reveal him. He himself reveals the Father in all that he says and does. So, Christ reveals the Father, while the Christian points to Christ.
“It is the Lord!” (Jn 21:7)
Jesus walks among us, even here, even now. The people of the world need this knowledge and the hope and joy that proceed from it. This is the Good News that every Christian is anointed and sent to proclaim by their very life: “The Lord is near” (Phil 4:5). Our task, then, is to cultivate the faith that perseveres “as though seeing him who is unseen” (Hb 11:27).
“The infant leaped in her womb.” (Lk 1:41)
Like John, who even from his mother’s womb, recognized and reacted to Christ’s presence with a leap of joy, we are called to an exquisite sensitivity to Christ’s presence in our world. We need to allow ourselves to be affected by the joy that his presence brings, and so communicate it to others. We do this not by speaking necessarily, but by leaping – by how our faith is manifest in our life.
Caryll Houselander’s classic work, The Reed of God, contains this description of the search for Christ’s presence:
“Our search through faith and courage and love is a great going out into darkness, a reaching out to others in darkness, believing that Christ is there in each one; but not in the way that we think he should be, not in the way that we already understand, but in the way that he chooses to be, who is himself the Way. ...
Usually, it is not by anything outward that we recognize him, but by a sudden rush and sweetness of life within us like the quickening of the unborn St John the Baptist, when he recognized the unborn Christ in Mary’s womb.
Thus it is that when we find him in others we also find him in ourselves. …
Awareness of the presence of the Divine Child in us draws us off from every distracting and destructive preoccupation, such as self-pity, anxiety, irritability with other people, the morbidity which leads us to dwell more upon our own sinfulness than upon the beauty of God.” (The Reed of God, pp. 143-4, 149, 140)
To leap like John is to respond to what is not seen with the eyes, but intuited with the heart, by a change of heart which is reflected somehow in our bearing. How can I leap? With a cheerful attitude. A smile. Readiness to lift someone’s burden. We are lifted from our self-centered preoccupations by the beauty of God and the nearness of his Anointed, rejoicing to have found him in persons and situations that at first seemed far from him. Isn’t it those situations that seem furthest from him where we find him with the greatest joy?
So, as we light the pink candle on the Advent wreath and watch it burn today and throughout this week, let us ready ourselves for leaping.
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near.” (Phil 4:4-5)
