Those Who Lived in Darkness and the shadow of death, a light has arisen (Monday 07 Jan 2019)

Monday 7 January, 2019
Those who lived in darkness and the shadow of death, a light has arisen!

_Today Jesus begins His mission of salvation, He goes about preaching the Good News, calling people to repentance. The gospel of today begins with the setting of John’s arrest. When Christ got the sad news that His forerunner, John the Baptist had been arrested, he was neither distracted nor became afraid of Herod in carrying out His mission because that was why He was born. Instead of hiding Himself, Jesus began His preaching of repentance and conversion with the people living in darkness and the shadow of death._

*Christ in the gospel of today brought the Good News to the people of Zebulun and Naphtali. They were described as a people living in darkness and the shadow of death but they were illuminated by the presence of Christ because they welcomed the message of Christ and they were transformed and transferred from darkness into light.*

_Christ indeed is the Light of the world that dispels darkness and whoever welcomes Him welcomes not only the light but welcomes transformation, wisdom, renewal, revival and breakthroughs. Christ came to us and humbled Himself to participate in our humanity (Phil 2:6-11) so that we can share in His divinity. We can only share in His divinity if and only if we give him access to come into our existence._

We can only participate and share in His divinity when we keep His commandments and live the kind of life He wants and love one another as He told us.

Saint John in the first reading of today reminds us that whoever keeps His commandments lives in God and God lives in him (I Jn 3: 22-4). It is by living and observing these divine precepts that we participate and share in the Trinitarian family of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Indeed, There are so many Herods around us; vicissitudes and challenges of life that often times try to weigh us down from actualizing our mission and distract us from focusing on God. Let us not be discouraged but rather we should imitate Christ in the gospel of today, who in the midst of the distractions stood firm and delivered His message of repentance that brought salvation to those living in darkness and in the shadow of death.

Again, there are so many Zebuluns and Naphtalis among Christians in our present time but there is no cause for alarm since Christ is already here with us to transform us, to change us, to revitalize, and make us better Christians. He was sent to bring Good News to the poor and to proclaim liberty to captives (Lk 4:17). Also He did not come to judge the world but to be its Saviour and those who believe in Him are not judged but those who do not believe in Him have already been judged (Jn 3:17-18).

Let Us Pray: Heavenly Father, let the message of salvation proclaimed by your Son our Lord Jesus Christ continue to make impact in us and may we be healed through His Word. Amen.