Gospel: John 1: 35-42
The first disciples of Jesus are excited: they go to their families and friends and tell them that they have found the Messiah. What does this mean? For these early disciples it was the long promise of one who would liberate Israel from its foreign occupiers, one who would restore the ancient kingdom of Israel so that they could once again live in freedom, peace, and prosperity.
But this is not what Jesus did. Jesus did bring the kingdom of God, but it was not a political or worldly entity: it is the one that already exists within each of us - the place of our inner being where God dwells and has placed himself as we are images and likenesses of God. Jesus came to lead us to that realization so that God's kingdom might take possession of us and free us from all that oppresses us: materialism, self-interest, selfishness, hedonism, ideology.
If we see Jesus only as a political Messiah, we will never be freed from the things that truly oppress us and keep us in chains. In fact, we only make them worse because we are focused only on power and control of others and not ourselves. But if we see Jesus as he really is, we are freed from these oppressions and we are free to love others as they should be loved and to serve and care for others as they need. Only then can we create a new civilization of love, one created from within, not from without.
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