Message of Abbot Paul - Tuesday 3rd January 2023

I suppose it was God himself who invented data protection when he refused to reveal himself to Moses at the Burning Bush by sharing his name with Moses, who nevertheless kept insisting, “Tell me your name.” All other gods, such as the gods of their enemies, had names, so Moses and the Israelites also wanted a god with a name. The problem with a name is that it determines and limits a thing or a person and God, if he is truly God, the one true God, cannot be limited or determined. Hence, what God says to Moses is something quite revolutionary. He simply uses the verb to be, saying, I AM or I AM WHO I AM. In other words, I am not a god as other gods are, but rather I am the very source of life, I am the creator of all that is and all things have their being in me. God’s Name, therefore, could not be known to man, nor could it be pronounced by man, for to know and speak it would be to possess God and have control over him. Hence, God shows himself to men and women in dreams and by means of angels, who both hide and reveal the living God. In the fulness of time, when God becomes man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, when the Word becomes flesh, God’s own choice of a name for him is Jesus, to show forth that this child will become the Saviour of the world, in the words of the Gospel, “that he would save his people from their sins.” Today, 3rd January we celebrate the Most Holy Name of Jesus, “the only name,” as St Paul teaches us, “by which we can be saved.”

 

​As we are still in Christmastide, we continue reading the Gospel of John, (Jn 1: 29-34), in which John the Baptist reveals to the crowds that Jesus is the Messiah, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is what John said: “Look, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. This is the one I spoke of when I said: A man is coming after me who ranks before me because he existed before me. I did not know him myself, and yet it was to reveal him to Israel that I came baptising with water. I saw the Spirit coming down on him from heaven like a dove and resting on him. I did not know him myself, but he who sent me to baptise with water had said to me, “The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and rest is the one who is going to baptise with the Holy Spirit.” Yes, I have seen and I am the witness that he is the Chosen One of God.” John’s words could not be clearer. It is John who presents us with the image that Jesus is the Lamb of God, the Lamb who will be sacrificed that we might be saved through the forgiveness of our sins. Just as the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus when he was baptised by John, so too Jesus will baptise his followers and believers in the Holy Spirit, thereby bestowing on them God’s own Spirit and sharing his life with them. This is why Jesus has come into the world, to accomplish the Father’s will that all creation might be reconciled with God and so made new.