εὐαγγελίζω (euaggelizo)
“to announce the Good News of victory in battle”
“to announce the Good News of victory in battle”
“When Judas had left them, Jesus said,
“Now is the Son of Man glorified (ἐδοξάσθη, edoxasthe),
and God is glorified in him.
If God is glorified in him,
God will also glorify him in himself,
and God will glorify him at once.
My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.
I give you a new commandment:
love (ἀγαπᾶτε, agapate) one another.
As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
This is how all will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.””
“Now is the Son of Man glorified (ἐδοξάσθη, edoxasthe),
and God is glorified in him.
If God is glorified in him,
God will also glorify him in himself,
and God will glorify him at once.
My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.
I give you a new commandment:
love (ἀγαπᾶτε, agapate) one another.
As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
This is how all will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.””
θεωρέω (theoreo)
(“to perceive, discover, ponder a deeper meaning”)
(“to perceive, discover, ponder a deeper meaning”)
“The Light of Christ,” thrice solemnly chanted at the start of The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night, continues to resonate and to reverberate throughout the entire cosmos on this Easter Sunday, the fifth of seven such Sundays. The singular light of the Paschal Candle rose in glory to dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds to flood all creation with the blazing light of the eternal King, Jesus Christ. The Church particularly continues to bask in that same Light “arrayed with the lightning of his glory” causing the holy building to shake with joy (The Easter Proclamation (Exsultet)).
We gathered in darkness on that Holy Night only to have it pierced by “The Light of Christ” Who enlightened our bodies, minds and hearts to listen to the announcement of that Night “when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld (The Easter Proclamation (Exsultet)).” Darkness, light and announcement: these are, among a number of realities, sensory experiences that express an essential dimension of glory: the biblical term for the sensible manifestation of God’s holiness and presence. There is something tangible, concrete; something sacramental and Incarnational about the biblical reality of glory.
We gathered in darkness on that Holy Night only to have it pierced by “The Light of Christ” Who enlightened our bodies, minds and hearts to listen to the announcement of that Night “when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld (The Easter Proclamation (Exsultet)).” Darkness, light and announcement: these are, among a number of realities, sensory experiences that express an essential dimension of glory: the biblical term for the sensible manifestation of God’s holiness and presence. There is something tangible, concrete; something sacramental and Incarnational about the biblical reality of glory.
For the Hebrew people journeying from the slavery of Egypt to the land flowing with milk and honey, the glory (Hebrew kavod/kabod) of God descended upon the Tent of Meeting, resulting in God dwelling (Hebrew shekhinah) among His people. For Isaiah, the glad tidings of hope and freedom paved the way for the glory of God to be revealed “for the mouth of the Lord has spoken (Isaiah 40:5).” Christian reflection on that prophetic word grasped its fulfillment in the Incarnation of Jesus: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory (Greek, doxa), the glory as of a Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).”
Jesus as the glory of the Father dispels popular understandings of glory that are often synonymous or associated with power, might or prestige to name only a few. While the signs (a very rich theological term in the Gospel according to Saint John) He performs throughout the Gospel are “wonders” or “powers” (Greek, dunamis [root for the English dynamic]), glory for Jesus is the act of love (Greek, agape) that finds its ultimate and complete expression in His Cross. In so doing, Jesus has defined the essence of Christian love, a point that must be crystal clear and lived with complete conviction. Saint Augustine underscores this point in his Tractates on the Gospel of John, the subject of this Sunday’s podcast.
Jesus as the glory of the Father dispels popular understandings of glory that are often synonymous or associated with power, might or prestige to name only a few. While the signs (a very rich theological term in the Gospel according to Saint John) He performs throughout the Gospel are “wonders” or “powers” (Greek, dunamis [root for the English dynamic]), glory for Jesus is the act of love (Greek, agape) that finds its ultimate and complete expression in His Cross. In so doing, Jesus has defined the essence of Christian love, a point that must be crystal clear and lived with complete conviction. Saint Augustine underscores this point in his Tractates on the Gospel of John, the subject of this Sunday’s podcast.
As mentioned in a podcast for the Third Sunday of Easter, Greek has a number of specific words that unfortunately are translated into English as love, often without any distinction of meaning or nuance. A television commercial during a famous game a few years ago, however, captured the finer distinctions among the various Greek words
The commercial provides a foundation or a starting point to begin comprehending what Jesus means by love (Greek agape). As an action, agape is effective, not primarily affective. In other words, agape is an act of the will, a decision. First and foremost, agape is a choice, not a feeling, not an emotion. Can agape have an affective, feeling or emotional dimension? Sure. However, the absence of affect, feeling or emotion does not equate to an absence of agape. Just because one does not ‘feel agape’ (however that is defined) does not mean its absence. I often think that when my Mom got up at 2:30am to care for me or any of my brothers or sisters, she may not necessarily have felt too well at that moment. This leads to the second dimension of agape as defined by Jesus. Agape is ordered or directed to the good of the other. Agape is the way of choosing and then acting for another’s good requiring varying degrees of selflessness, self-surrender and self-emptying as echoed in Philippians 2:6-11 and led Saint John Chrysostom to reflect:
“For we admire Him not only because of the miracles but also because of the sufferings. We admire the fact that He was nailed upon the cross, that He was scourged, that He was beaten, that He was spit on, that He received blows on the cheek from those to whom He had done good. For even of those very things that seem to be shameful, it is proper to repeat the same expression, since He Himself called that action “glory.” For what then took place was [proof] not only of kindness and love but also of unspeakable power. At that time death was abolished, the curse was loosed, devils were shamed and led in triumph and made a show of, and the handwriting of our sins was nailed to the cross. And then, since these wonders were happening invisibly, others took place visibly, showing that he was truly the only begotten Son of God, the Lord of all creation. For while that blessed body hung on the tree, the sun turned away its rays, the whole earth was troubled and became dark, the graves were opened, the ground quaked, and an innumerable multitude of the dead leaped forth and went into the city. And while the stones of his tomb were fastened on the vault and the seals still on them, the dead arose, the crucified, the nail-pierced one, and having filled his eleven disciples with his mighty power, he sent them to people throughout all the world, to be the common healers of all their kind, to correct their way of living, to spread through every part of the earth the knowledge of their heavenly doctrines, to break down the tyranny of devils, to teach those great and ineffable blessings, to bring to us the glad tidings of the soul’s immortality and the eternal life of the body, and rewards that are beyond conception and shall never have an end (Homilies on the Gospel of John, 12).”
“For we admire Him not only because of the miracles but also because of the sufferings. We admire the fact that He was nailed upon the cross, that He was scourged, that He was beaten, that He was spit on, that He received blows on the cheek from those to whom He had done good. For even of those very things that seem to be shameful, it is proper to repeat the same expression, since He Himself called that action “glory.” For what then took place was [proof] not only of kindness and love but also of unspeakable power. At that time death was abolished, the curse was loosed, devils were shamed and led in triumph and made a show of, and the handwriting of our sins was nailed to the cross. And then, since these wonders were happening invisibly, others took place visibly, showing that he was truly the only begotten Son of God, the Lord of all creation. For while that blessed body hung on the tree, the sun turned away its rays, the whole earth was troubled and became dark, the graves were opened, the ground quaked, and an innumerable multitude of the dead leaped forth and went into the city. And while the stones of his tomb were fastened on the vault and the seals still on them, the dead arose, the crucified, the nail-pierced one, and having filled his eleven disciples with his mighty power, he sent them to people throughout all the world, to be the common healers of all their kind, to correct their way of living, to spread through every part of the earth the knowledge of their heavenly doctrines, to break down the tyranny of devils, to teach those great and ineffable blessings, to bring to us the glad tidings of the soul’s immortality and the eternal life of the body, and rewards that are beyond conception and shall never have an end (Homilies on the Gospel of John, 12).”
