Jesus the Lord

Cycle C - Christmas

FIRST READING: Isaiah 52:7-10 – How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of good, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” Hark, your watchmen lift up their voice, together they sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the Lord to Zion. Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem; for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

SECOND READING: Hebrews 1: 1-6 – In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has obtained is more excellent than theirs. For to what angel did God ever say, “Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee?” Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son?” And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, “Let all God’s angels worship him.”

GOSPEL: John 1: 1-18 – In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. [...] The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. [...] And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.

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Origen (184–254 CE) maintains in his Philocalia that most of the Bible contains ‘doctrines in narrative form’ (Chap. 1, para. 15). A few paragraphs later he confesses that he did not know how they who think the narratives were written for their own sake “will reconcile themselves to the will of the Holy Spirit” (para. 29). While driving home the fourfold senses of Scripture—the literal, allegorical, moral (tropological), and mystical (anagogic)—Origen also insisted, together with all the Fathers of the Church, that the Bible is not a history or a science book. It is essentially a book of faith.

This is particularly relevant when approaching Jesus’ nativity and infancy narratives in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. None of them were intended to be taken literally. Doing so only banalises the text, as is habitually done. What they really are, indeed, are doctrines in narrative form.

 Some of the basic doctrines that the narratives contain are today proclaimed in different genres of speech. To be sure, the three readings successively carry us deeper and deeper into the wonder and fascination of Jesus. The disciple of the prophet Isaiah, writing during the Babylonian captivity, proclaims a message of peace. Certainly, Jesus’ mission can fairly be summed up in this one word—peace—which embraces his doctrine of justice and non-violence. More than a mere moral figure, however, Jesus is also mediator and saviour. This is basic message proclaimed to Jewish Christian converts who lived under great pressure from Judaisers in the first century. Jesus is presented to them as immeasurably superior to the patriarchs and prophets of old; Jesus as the authentic ‘face’ of God. Deeper still, after years of prayer and meditation about God’s love, John appropriats for himself a beautiful Greek hymn of his time, and proclaims Jesus as the incarnate Logos (Word), consubstantial with God the Creator.

The over-all invitation of today’s writings is to hush and be still before the birth of Lord Jesus, and very simply, very quietly, adore him in his boundless love.

The God of small things

Cycle C – Advent 4

FIRST READING: Michah 5: 1-4. Thus says the Lord: You, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in travail has brought forth; then the rest of his brethren shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And this shall be peace.

SECOND READING: Hebrews 10: 5-10. When Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,’ as it is written of me in the roll of the book.” When he said above, “Thou has neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Lo, I have come to do thy will.” He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

GOSPEL: Luke 1: 39-45. Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.

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Back in 1997 my eye was caught by a title of a novel written by Indian-born Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things (HarperCollins, New York). I immediately bought the book because, within its folds, I had expected to find some kind of exploration of what the title seemed to promise. Instead, I was given a story of child marriages in India and, of course, as might be expected, later forbidden loves. Despite the novel’s merit on other counts, in this I had been disappointed: it said very little about the ‘small things’ with which God seems to be so captivated. At least, that’s what the Bible proclaims.

I see ‘small’ people all the time around me – poor people in obscure villages, children growing up in the inner city, single parents struggling to make it, prisoners, refugees, landless farmers, illegal immigrants, women, disoriented young people, vagrants, the elderly, those caught up in war, people struggling to make a living ... The world seems to be full of them: people without names; without a history; without respect and, sometimes, recognition from the ‘big’ ones who play the game of powerful politics. Nonetheless, they are God’s dearest treasures.

Jesus himself had been ‘small’. This is what had been proclaimed by the prophet Michah in the second half of the 8th-century during the time of the ‘big’ kings of Israel: the great ruler of Israel, the great one of old, the great liberator, the great provider, the majestic, the great peace-maker ... shall be small, just like his small birth-town of Bethlehem (the former Ephrathah; today’s Beit Lehem), which belonged to the smallest of Judah’s clans.

‘Small’, also, was Mary, Jesus’ mother, and ‘small’ were Zechariah and Elizabeth, just as ‘small’ was the latter’s village in the south-west hills of Jerusalem (today’s Ain Karem), 50 miles away from Beit Lehem, and ‘small’ was their home, as the evangelist suggests.

These texts are all permeated with a picture of smallness, of unimportance, or triviality, of insignificance, of minor people, towns and actions. This is in perfect concord with the depiction of smallness in the whole of the Bible. And yet, it is precisely this smallness, as the Pauline writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews proclaims, which makes real difference; which effectively “abolishes” the ‘big’ and powerful; which “sanctifies” the ‘small’ through Jesus “once for all”.

Indeed, God is the God of small things.

God’s manifestation

Cycle C – Advent 3

FIRST READING: Zephaniah 3:14-18 – Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgements against you, he has cast out your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear evil no more. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: ‘Do not fear, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak. The Lord your God is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival.’

SECOND READING: Philippians 4: 4-7 – Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

GOSPEL: Luke 3: 10-18 – The multitudes asked John, ‘What shall we do?’ And he answered them, ‘He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise.’ Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and said to him, ‘Teacher, what shall we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Collect no more than is appointed you.’ Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what shall we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Rob no one by violence or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.’

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The prophet Zephaniah (living, in the second half of the 7th century BCE) preached during the time of Israel’s kingdom; John the Baptist and Paul during the Roman occupation of Palestine. All three considered the people’s political situation to be very grim and dismal, and that things shall eventually change.

All three thus expected this to come about by some kind of manifestation of God; when God shall tear the skies open and descent upon the world to bring justice and peace. While Zephaniah expected this to happen in some distant future, and John perhaps in the near future, Paul expected it during his own lifetime.

Actually, all three were wrong. There was to be no grand manifestation of God. According to God’s plan, change had to come in another manner which was altogether different: the Jesus way. This is the silent, hidden revolution of hearts and minds. It is in this way that God works; this is how he brings about change.

Jesus birth, which we celebrate in over a week’s time, is ample proof of how God works and manifests himself. You are the change that God promised and planned. You are God’s manifestation which most people shall ever encounter.

The 'impossibity' of the Christmas event

Cycle C – Advent 1


FIRST READING – Jeremiah 33: 14-16 – “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfil the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous branch to spring forth for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’”

SECOND READING – 1 Thessalonians 3: 12-4:2 – May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all men, as we do to you, so that he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. Finally, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God, just as you are doing, you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 

GOSPEL – Luke 21: 25-28, 34-36 – Jesus said to his disciples, “There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. But take heed to yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a snare; for it will come upon all who dwell upon the face of the whole earth. But watch at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of man.” 

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Before the Israelites’ exile to Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah had warned them severely that their hierarchical social structure, blindly copied from godless nations, shall lead them into serious trouble. Nevertheless, when this came about Jeremiah saw it as a blessing in disguise: he foretold that a remnant shall survive the terrible ordeal, and finally organise society in a just and righteous way; a society of equality, freedom and sister/brotherhood. Only such a society will be able to guarantee the people’s possibility to “dwell securely”.

The same hope in despair is expressed by Paul while writing to the Christians of Thessalonica. Though he had preached to them the gospel of righteousness and freedom, the Jewish Christians, obsessed with sectarian and intransigent beliefs, rescinded most of his work there. Nevertheless, a remnant survived which remained faithful to his teachings. This was the community of equality, freedom and sister/brotherhood which Jeremiah envisaged.

Jesus’ language, while recalling that of the prophets, is thoroughly symbolic. Since the gospels were written solely for Christian communities, this passage fully recognises Christians’ discouragement by what they see and hear in the Church and around them, and exhorts them to be steadfast in their faith and not lose heart.

Like some Israelites in Babylon, some Christians in Thessalonica, and some Jews in Jesus’ time, some Christians today may indeed perceive that the community of equality, freedom and sister/brotherhood willed by God for his Church is, indeed, not be a universal reality. Unfortunately, signs of sectarianism and intransigence are everywhere. Nevertheless, there are realistic indications of hope, particularly with Christians (laity, religious, priests, bishops and cardinals) who are tuned to the demands of such a community. This hope is expressed in the ‘impossibility’ of the Christmas event.