Tuesday 1 December
Luke 10:21-24
Full of joy and praise, Jesus thanked his heavenly Father for giving his disciples the gift of revelation. This gift enabled them to take hold of truth which their human minds on their own could simply never grasp. Faith is a pure gift of God – it is a supernatural virtue.
The same gift of revelation is available to us today if we will but take hold of it. This interior working is no less than the activity of the Holy Spirit who moves the human heart to convert it to God and who opens the eyes of the mind, making it easy for us all to accept and believe the truth. The truth which revelation makes known is that Jesus of Nazareth is one with God the Father. In other words, God became man in Jesus and Jesus, because he is God, is worthy of all honour, glory and praise.
The word ‘rejoice’ is translated from the Greek agalliao and captures the idea of a profound joy which overflows into laughter and pleasure. The great men and women of the Hebrew Scriptures had longed to see the coming of the Messiah but they ‘did not receive what was promised’ (Heb. 11:39). At the heart of Jesus’ joy was his knowledge that God had fulfilled his promise - that he would not forget his people and that the Saviour had been born to them.
This Advent we can seek a gift or grace of revelation to enable us to take hold, in a new and exciting way, of the mystery of God becoming man. It was precisely this gift which gave Jesus such joy and it is precisely this gift which the Holy Spirit delights to pour out upon us. How true are the words of Peter Abelard who said, ‘I think the purpose and cause of the incarnation was that God might illuminate the world by his wisdom and excite it to the love of himself.’ The Spirit brings the truth of Jesus’ incarnation alive in a new and exciting way for us. This doesn’t have to be a major ‘Allelluia’ moment but it can be a fresh insight which deepens our understanding and moves us to praise and worship God the Father for sending us his Son.
‘The Word of God became a man so that you might learn from a man how to become a god.’
(St Clement of Alexandria)
Isaiah 11:1-10 • Psalm 71(72):1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17
Luke 10:21-24
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