THE WORD BECAME FLESH

Friday after Epiphany 2022

Jer. 23:5-8

Ps 147

Luke 5:12-16

Emmanuel - God With Us

Dear friends in Christ, God’s promise of salvation for humankind was to be realised in the birth of His Son into the world. As the Gospel of John puts it, “The Word became flesh…” The Word without whom nothing was created, which had existed before creation, came into the world in human form, born as a child. This mystery is beyond full comprehension.

Today’s first reading (Jeremiah 23:5-8) God reveals his plan through the prophet to give to his people a righteous branch who will be a descendant of David. At a time when the people had been plagued by weak governments and challenging alliances leading the nation to the path of total collapse, this comes as good news, his presence will signify the righteousness of God among his people. 

The name of the Savior of the world was in today’s Gospel (Matthew 1:18-24) revealed to the one who had the right to give him a name, as his earthly father, according to the culture into which he is to be born. Joseph therefore being of the line of David assumes the role of the earthly father and guardian of God. Like the Joseph sold into slavery in Egypt, his dream was the game changer of his life. He will accept responsibility from then on and protect Mary and Jesus in every way possible to him.

Coming into the world, he took a name, but a name that obviously reveals but still hides the mystery, Emmanuel—God with us. In almost every culture in Africa, name is everything, as it reveals where you come from, and sometimes describe the circumstances of conception and birth. It reveals the cultural and religious values of the person, the family and the community. The name could simply reveal if one is from a royal family or the family occupation. The name could reveal if one was born in a time of joy or a time of disaster, whether on a journey or in ones homeland. Unfortunately today, many of us do not even know the meaning of the names we bear. There are many who cannot even pronounce correctly their names. Worse still is the fact that people now search for names that are ‘unique’ rather than that which is meaningful to their existence.

Friedrich Von Hugel wrote on the incarnation saying, “For a person came, and lived and loved, and did and taught, and died and rose again, and lives on by his power and his spirit forever within us and among us, so unspeakably rich and yet so simple, so sublime and yet so homely, so divinely above us precisely in being so divinely near—that his character and teaching require, for an ever fuller yet never complete understanding, the varying study and different experiments and applications, embodiments and unrolling of all the races and civilisations, of all the individual and corporate, the simultaneous and successive experiences of the human race to the end of time.”(cf. De Lubac, Catholicism, p.439)

Every Christian is expected to live up to that name. That name of being another Christ to those who live in your world. Living up to your anointing which you received at Baptism.

Let us pray: Lord guide us on our journey of life, renew your anointing in us and keep us faithful to our baptismal promises. Amen. 

+Remain blessed