FIRST READING: Zechariah 12: 10-11; 13: 1. Thus says the Lord: “I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication so that, when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him as one weeps over a first-born. On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo. On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.”
SECOND READING: Galatians 3: 26-29. In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male or female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
GOSPEL: Luke 9: 18-24. It happened that as Jesus was praying alone the disciples were with him; and he asked them, “Who do the people say that I am?” And they answered, “John the Baptist; but others say Elijah; and others, that one of the old prophets has risen.” And he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered, “The Christ of God.” But he charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” And he said to all, “if any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it.”
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The prophet Zachariah lived and preached in Jerusalem to the returned exiles (about 520 BCE). He considered the new age the Israelites were beginning together as a great opportunity to re-establish the dream Moses had centuries before to have a stateless nation based on the concept of equality amongst all tribes. Zachiariah encouraged the people not to give their nation the ruinous structure of the former kingdom which had brought about so much injustice and suffering. They would regret this if they had to do so, and ‘mourn’ their mistake as when their forefathers mourned the death of Josiah, Israel’s greatest king after David, at Megiddo in 609 BCE (2 Kgs. 23: 29).
Paul proclaims the same political levelling where differences of gender, status, ethnicity, etc., will be removed in favour of a humanising equality of all in Christ.
Jesus was ready to die for this ideal. His mission was to remove injustices and suffering through the institution of a new community of equals.
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