Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Sunday of the Word of God)
John the Baptist says of Jesus “I did not know Him,” but that “the One who sent me to baptize with water told me.” What John knows of Jesus, he knows from God. Why would this be the case, though? Were John and Jesus not cousins? Would they not have known each other from growing up in the same family? Yes, but of course, John would have known Jesus only partly in this way. Many who thought they knew Jesus—those who were of Jesus’ home town, for instance—only knew Him on a human level. They did not know Him as God.
John was a prophet, and thus knew his ignorance. John knew that for all the time he may have spent with Jesus, he did not yet know the most important part of Him. The Father promised John he would know, and the Holy Spirit fulfilled the promise—the Father and the Spirit showed John the Son. Through grace, John was able to surpass the knowledge of those who grew up with Jesus thinking of Him only as “the carpenter’s son.” Through God’s revelation, John saw Jesus for who He was.
We, too, are ignorant as John was. Perhaps we have come to know Jesus on a human level, reading of His great lessons and thinking Him a wise moral teacher. Yet if we are attentive to Scripture, we see that He is far more. For John, the Holy Spirit rested upon Jesus and allowed him to see Jesus in a fuller way. For us, the Holy Spirit has inspired Scripture, allowing us to see Him for who He is. We cannot know Jesus without Scripture. We cannot know the Word of God without the word of God. Follow the example of John: cherish the Scriptures, know Jesus.