Jan 8: The One Mediator Between God and Humanity

Anonymous: Christ Pantocrator
Belarus, 1744

Saturday after Epiphany

Gospel: Jn 3:22-30

“He must increase, but I must decrease (NRSV, Jn 3:30).”

How often, Father, have I asked you to increase my understanding of who Jesus is? Inevitably when I do this, I speak about Jesus as if he were an object, someone over there, apart from the two of us, about whom we can talk. Why can I not truly grasp than whenever I speak to you at all, Lord, about Jesus or anything, I always speak to you through him. Jesus is the one mediator, between you, Father, and us, but he is never the inter-mediary. He does not carry your message to me and my message to you. He is your message, to me, to all of us, spoken once and for all, but always spoken. Nor does he carry my, our, words to you. Through Jesus we have immediate access to you, Lord. That is why Jesus is mediator without being intermediary. And so Jesus is never object, never someone apart about whom we can simply talk.

Lord, instead of pleading with you to increase my understanding of Jesus, maybe I should just listen to the Word that you speak. In the physical world, when I hear my friend speak, he is across the room, or at the other end of the telephone line, and his voice comes to me from “over there.” Your Word who is Jesus, on the contrary, is spoken to me at the depth of my being. In fact, it is through your Word, that I, we, the world, am created. The watchmaker makes his watch and when, he is finished, ceases his work; he lays the watch on the table. Lord, your creation of me, us, the world, is on-going. If the act were to cease (but your act, Lord, cannot cease because it is your being), I, we, the world would cease to exist. Your creative act (which is just your act, which is just you), Lord, through your Word who is Jesus is constant. Your Word is present to me from my first moment in the womb and then at every successive moment. The Word is your presence to me. Again, how foolish of me to ask you, Lord, to increase my understanding of Jesus, when your Word spoken to me at every moment is everything that I know of you. You, Lord, do not shed light on your Word. It is your Word who sheds light on You.

Lord, I said that maybe I should just listen to the Word that you speak. But the Word who is Jesus and through whom I, we, the world, am created, does not allow me just to listen. He demands a response from me. This response can only be made in the power of the Holy Spirit (the one Spirit who is yours, Father, and the Word’s) as indeed even the listening and hearing can only be made in the same Spirit. The response requested is to accept the gift of your life offered to me, us, at that first moment. Growth in this gift which is life in your Spirit, Father, is then offered to me, us, again and again, through your Word, at every moment.

And, if all of this were not marvelous enough, the very Word that you speak, Lord, from all eternity, the very Word through whom I, we, the world, am created and I, we, share your own divine life, has also become one of us in the flesh, conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, to be with us in the body and to pass through death with us.

It is all too wonderful for the human mind to grasp. May your Word, Lord, ever increase in me, as I, living of and for myself, decrease.


Alleluia. Amen.