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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Gospel text (Jn 1:19-28): This is the testimony of John. When the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites [to him] to ask him, “Who are you?” he admitted and did not deny it, but admitted, “I am not the Messiah... but there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie...”

Bethlehem: "God bends down"

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, John the Baptist “bends down” before God. It is exactly what the Redeemer does: God dwells up high, but gets closer by bending down. The Creator of the universe is far from us, and so it seems initially. But then, the surprising experience comes: He looks down. By looking down comes His work: it transforms me and the world.

"God bends down": this is a prophetic sentence which acquired a completely new meaning on the night of Bethlehem. The bow of God has taken an unprecedented realism never believed before. He bends down: He comes down as a child, even in the misery of the stable, the symbol of all necessities. The Creator who has everything in His hands, of which we all depend, makes Himself small and in need of the human love. God is in the stable!

—Nothing can be more sublime and bigger than the love that bends down that way. The greatness of God becomes visible when the eyes of the heart open up before the stable of Bethlehem.