Understanding the Word

By Br. John R. Barker, OFM

The story of Israel commences with an elderly, childless couple to  whom God promises countless descendants. The Lectionary reading  begins with the initial promise to Abram, made in response to his  complaint that all of the blessings he had received will pass to his  servant—an unsubtle critique that the promise of descendants has  not been fulfilled. In an intervening passage (Genesis 17) God makes  this already improbable promise even more unlikely by insisting  that ninety-year-old Sarah will be the mother of those countless  descendants. The increasingly implausible promise of descendants,  however, is finally fulfilled, setting the biblical precedent that God has  the power and the will to bring life where it does not seem possible. 

In his Letter to the Hebrews the author here focuses on the faith  of Abraham, who trusted in God’s promises (Genesis 12:1–7). When  God told Abraham to leave his family and go “to a land that I will  show you,” he went. Abraham also believed that God would produce  an heir through Sarah—and so it happened. The most difficult act of  faith came when God, without explanation, commanded Abraham  to sacrifice that very same heir (Genesis 22). Although the Genesis  account reveals nothing of Abraham’s thoughts about this command,  the author of Hebrews draws on the tradition that Abraham trusted  God to raise up his sacrificed son, a symbol of the resurrection of  God’s own sacrificed Son. 

The central theme of the Gospel reading is fulfillment. The Holy  Family fulfills the law, obeying it by circumcising Jesus (2:21) and  now presenting him to God. According to Exodus 13:11–16, the  firstborn male was to be set aside exclusively for God. Usually, the  child was redeemed, “bought back,” for five shekels. Jesus is not  redeemed, however, because he will remain consecrated to God.  The purification of the mother, who became ritually unclean during  childbirth for seven days, lasted for thirty-three days after that; then  she could once again enter the temple. Jesus himself fulfills God’s  promises to Israel. Both Simeon and Anna represent pious Jews who  trusted in these promises. They thus represent also those who would  recognize and favorably receive Jesus as the Christ. 

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