NOTES for Jo1 1:1-4

The life of Jesus' beloved disciple is hidden from us. The Bible tells us nothing about how he lived most of the years granted to him or how he died. We have his Gospel, his epistles, and the Apocalypse. We regard him as a great mystic, a man who saw what mortals are not permitted to see. Too often we think that this was his ministry, his principal task: to convey the unearthly to us. At best, we think that his chief task was to hear Christ's words and convey them to us. All this is, of course, true. But that is not what we read about today. John the Theologian gives us the formula of apostolic ministry: we write to you about what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked upon, and what our hands have touched, concerning the Word of life. He tells us: I touched Him with my own hands, I reached out to Him, I felt the warmth of His hand. Not visions of the Last Judgment, not symbols, not prophecies—these are not the main thing, but rather that I, a human being, touched God and Man with my own hand. We ourselves usually bear witness to this last of all, because it is easier to explain the creation of the world and the origin of evil and sin; all this is, of course, far easier to explain than the possibility of touching God with one's hand.