Year A

Dec 13 2024

Scripture Study for

The miracle of water from the rock is God’s response to the people’s rebellion in the wilderness. Moses’ authority is under direct attack. Nonetheless, just as God delivered the people from the bondage of Egypt through the leadership of Moses, so now, again through the actions of Moses, God provides for their needs. Moses is instructed to employ the staff he used to perform the signs and wonders that surrounded the liberation from Egypt. When he strikes the rock, life-giving water flows forth. This is but another example of God’s boundless and compassionate love for sinners.

The justification of the Romans is based on the righteousness that originates in God, a righteousness that gives and sustains life, security, and well-being. According to Paul, we have no right to this relationship with God. It has been given to us, won for us by the Lord Jesus Christ. We did not deserve it. We were sinners, alienated from God, when Christ died for us and gained access for us to the grace that places us in right relationship with God. The prodigious quantity of God’s graciousness is beyond our comprehension. It is poured out like water, life-giving, enriching, and overflowing.

The living water metaphor about which Jesus and the Samaritan woman con verse has a long and rich history in the religious tradition of Israel, where it is seen as a principle of spiritual life. Jesus’ unexplained knowledge of the woman’s marital situation prompts her to call him a prophet and to launch into another discussion about the proper place to worship God. Here too Jesus moves the conversation away from what is merely perceptible to the level of deep spiritual meaning, from a discussion of the place of worship to one that characterizes the manner of worship. The word of salvation comes to the Samaritan village through a woman, it takes root in the hearts of these despised and marginalized people, and it grows into a great harvest.

Dec 03 2024

Scripture Study for

Isaiah wrote of a time when the monarchy had been conquered and there seemed to be no hope for a future king. Yet out of this “stump” a new ruler would emerge. The image of his “peaceable kingdom” recalls the primal paradise of Eden (see Genesis 2), where the animals did not follow their predatory instincts, and natural enemies lived in harmony with each other. In this new reign, all creation will be either transformed or recreated. This vision is not a return to the past, but one of future peace and fulfillment.

Paul bases his teaching of universal salvation for all on God’s original promise that Abram and his descendants would be a source of blessing for others (see Genesis 12:2; 22:18). Paul argues that it was in fulfillment of this promise that the Gentiles have been brought into the family of God through the love of Christ. In his prayer for the community, he asks for three different expressions of unity: “to think in harmony,” to be in “one accord,” and to glorify God in “one voice” (Romans 15:5–6). This unity in no way obliterates the differences between Jew and Gentile; it is a unity in diversity.

John’s baptism was neither the kind that proselytes to Judaism underwent, nor the repeated ritual cleansing that the Essene community of Qumran practiced. It was a devotional rite with eschatological significance, administered to Jews, accompanied by their acknowledgment of sinfulness and a resolve to live an ethical life. John admits his subordinate role when compared with Jesus. He, John, is the voice that announces the coming of another. The winnowing of which he speaks refers to the separation of those who respond to John’s call to repentance from those who do not. John does not act as judge; the one who is to come will do the judging. In other words, the time of the Messiah will be a time of both redemption and judgment.

Dec 03 2024

Scripture Study for

The first reading contains a vision of universal peace and an invitation to participate in that peace through faithfulness to God’s word. The image of the reign of God found in the reading from Isaiah is of a city, not known for its political prominence or military might, but revered as the dwelling place of God. This is a vision of the future reign of God, of an eschatological age of complete faithfulness to God and the peace and harmony among people that will flow from it.

Paul, too, speaks about the reign of God, but from a different perspective. He tells the Roman Christians that they are living in a decisive moment, the kairós, the period of transition from the age of sin to the long-awaited age of fulfillment. Paul employs several images to characterize this division of time. He says that this age is like slumber, or night and darkness, while the age to come is like wakefulness, or day and light. He urges the Christians to wake from sleep and to live in faithful

ness. The apparent incongruity between these two ages exemplifies the paradox that we sometimes hear, “already but not yet.” It is a way of acknowledging that the age of fulfillment, the reign of God, has already dawned, but it has not yet been brought to completion in our lives.

Jesus also speaks about this transition from one age to the next. The question he addresses is not whether this time will come, but when it will come. Like a good teacher, he uses examples to make his point. The people at the time of Noah were oblivious to the danger that faced them and so they were not ready. The same was true in the analogies he uses of the men and women, and the parable of the householder, all of whom blindly go about their daily lives. The moral of the story? Be prepared!

Dec 03 2024

Scripture Study for

The reading from Isaiah focuses on future, universal recognition of the sovereignty of the God of Israel. God’s mountain refers to the site of the temple, yet the image evokes more than location. Not only God’s dwelling place, but also as the place from which the divine King exercises dominion through law-giving and judgment, the mountain represents God’s sovereign rule. In time, the kingship of God will extend beyond Israel as other nations receive both instructions previously reserved for Israel and the benefit of God’s just judgment. Enlightened by God’s instruction and obedient to God’s judgment of conflicts, the nations will have no need to resort to war.

Having exhorted the Roman Christians not to conform themselves to the present age, but to allow their minds to be transformed (Romans 12:2), Paul has insisted they must love one another, for “love is the fulfillment of the law” (13:10). Paul now places his plea within the context of God’s plan: moral transformation is both necessary and urgent, for the dawn of salvation has begun. To remain in former ways is to be caught “asleep” as the sun rises. Transformation comes about by putting on the “armor of light,” Christ himself (“put on the Lord Jesus Christ”), who protects against the seductions of the flesh, physical or social. Thus, it is Christ who brings about in the believer this saving transformation.

Jesus’ speech picks up this same idea of not being caught off guard when he returns. Just as the flood brought with it a sudden change from life as usual to judgment, so it will be when the Son of Man comes back. Now is the time to make whatever changes need to be made in one’s life. As in the Pauline passage, there is a union of eschatology and ethics—one must live in a way that is fitting for the reign of God. There will come a time when it will be “too late,” when the time of preparation will have passed.

Dec 03 2024

Living on the Edge—of Time

When you stand at the lip of the Grand Canyon, you can see into a vast distance. You know that you are at the edge of something. Today, we are on the edge of something, too—the edge of time. That is a little harder to see. A pregnant mother breathes with the contractions of her womb; she is on the edge of the moment of birth. The family of a dying man waits by his hospital bed, attentive to his breathing, on the brink of the time of his death. Time has edges. Time has moments when something is about to shift.

At the time of First Isaiah, bloodthirsty Assyria hovered over Israel. The prophet sensed that time was about to change. Now we know that it was the total destruction of Israel’s northern kingdom and the loss of the ten northern tribes. Only Isaiah felt it coming. His people didn’t know. They were on an edge when history was about to shift.

Jesus alerts us to this edginess: we do not know our own time or hour. We do not know the time or the hour for our loved ones. Each moment of the present is a shifting point between past and future. We live on the edge of time.

Today, we are on the edge of Advent. Advent is the liturgical time that alerts us: Stay awake! Be ready! We know that Christmas is coming. We do not know when Jesus will come again in glory. With Isaiah, we pray that swords will be turned into plowshares. Are we on the edge of a shift in history? We do not know. But with God’s help, we hold onto this quiet Advent hope: Our God is timeless, but is also the Lord of time. Jesus is here, now and always.

Consider/Discuss

Think of your own moments of transition and change, the edginess of time in your own life. How has God been with you in those moments?
As we look toward the unfolding of Advent, how can we use this season of preparation purposefully to grow spiritually stronger for the next “something” that is coming our way?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, as we begin our Advent preparation, we wait for you. We listen for you in the stillness. We wait for you as in the quiet darkness before the dawn. We do not know what is ahead, but in this moment, breathe within us and strengthen us. Abide with us. Cleanse our hearts and let us be ready to receive you, no matter what may swirl around us. Come, Lord Jesus! Come and be born in our hearts.