John 1,29-34 – SS. Name of Jesus
John sees Jesus coming towards him and does a very simple thing and points to him. His entire theology is summed up in this word: “Behold”. Faith always begins like this: someone who doesn’t give you a theoretical answer, but shows you a Presence. And then he pronounces a name that is a revelation: “Lamb of God”. Not lion, not judge, not conqueror. Lamb. That is, vulnerable, gentle, offered. As if to say that God does not save us with force, but with love. He doesn’t conquer us, he delivers himself. And this is precisely what we celebrate today: the Name of Jesus is not a magic formula, it is the synthesis of a style. Jesus means “God saves”. But he saves like this: taking charge, taking it upon himself, entering into our wounds instead of avoiding them. His Name is a promise, but also a provocation: he saves us not by removing the burden, but by carrying it with us. John says: “I did not know him.” Not because John was far from God, but because he reminds us that God is never possessed once and for all. You can recognize it as it passes. We discover it as it comes towards us. Faith is not a static certainty, it is an encounter that happens. And John adds: “I saw the Spirit come upon Him.” Faith comes from the look. Not from reasoning, but from experience. First you see, then you believe. And this is liberating, because we are only asked to let ourselves be reached. Perhaps today this Gospel invites us to do a very simple thing: stop, look at Jesus who comes towards us in our concrete history, and let us say his Name as a personal promise: “I am here to save you”. The Name of Jesus is this: a presence that comes to meet us every day, even today, even within what weighs. And if we let it, that Name stops being just a word and becomes a relationship that changes everything. We should pray more often by pronouncing only the Name of Jesus. We will realize that just pronouncing it brings hell to its knees in whatever way it manifests itself.
