First Reading - Isaiah 57:7-10
Second Reading - Hebrew 1:1-6
Gospel - John 1:1-5,9
The First Reading from Isaiah speaks with sharp clarity. God exposes the people’s habit of seeking fulfillment away from him, running after substitutes that promise much but deliver little. What is striking is not just their wandering, but their persistence. They grow weary, yet they do not say, “This is useless.” It is a deeply human portrait. We often keep investing ourselves in what drains us because we fear letting go. Isaiah’s message is not simply condemnation; it is revelation. God shows us that misplaced desire leads to exhaustion, while true life flows only from returning to him.
Against that background, the Second Reading from Hebrews announces something astonishing. God has not remained silent or distant. After speaking in many ways through the prophets, God now speaks fully and finally through the Son. This is not just another message or moral instruction. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory, the perfect imprint of God’s being. In other words, if we want to know who God is, how God loves, and where life is found, we look to the Son. God does not offer guidance from afar; God steps into history and reveals himself personally.
The Gospel from John takes us even deeper. Before creation, before history, there is the Word. This Word is not silent or abstract. The Word is life, and that life is the light of humanity. Darkness is real, but it is not final. It cannot overcome the light. The Gospel insists that true light enlightens everyone. No one is excluded. No life is untouched by this offer of illumination.
Dear friends, these readings form a powerful invitation. Isaiah exposes our tendency to search for meaning where it cannot last. Hebrews proclaims that God has spoken decisively in the Son. John reveals that this Son is light itself, entering the darkness not to condemn it, but to overcome it.
Many people are tired, not because they work too much, but because they hope in things that cannot sustain them. We scroll, accumulate, achieve, and strive, yet remain restless. The Gospel does not shame us for this hunger. It redirects it. It tells us that the longing we feel is actually a longing for light, for truth, for God.
The good news is that this light is not distant or reserved for the spiritually elite. It shines quietly, steadily, even when we are unsure how to receive it. The invitation is simple but demanding: stop chasing what exhausts the soul and turn toward the light that gives life.
When we allow the Word to speak into our darkness, clarity begins to grow. When we choose the light, even imperfectly, the darkness loses its power. God has spoken. The light has come. And every time we turn toward it, we discover that we are not lost, but being led into life.
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