Year B

Jan 29 2025

Scripture Study for

Isaiah speaks of enlightenment. He cries out to Jerusalem, “Arise!” “Shine!” Jerusalem is not only delivered from its misfortune by God, but also it is reestablished as a thriving city. Its dispersed inhabitants return, its destroyed reputation is restored, and its despoiled prosperity is reconstituted. This is not a promise to be fulfilled in the future; Jerusalem’s salvation is an accomplished fact. It is happening before the city’s very eyes. Such good fortune is evidence of God’s favor. This good favor is another reason why the city is summoned, “Arise and shine forth!”

The Letter to the Ephesians declares that in Christ the Gentiles are coheirs, comembers and copartners with the Jews. According to the author, the status of the Gentiles had to be revealed because it had been secret until now. The apostles and prophets constituted the foundation of the church. Now, it is through this appointed messenger that the Spirit reveals a new revelation to that established church. This new revelation contains a startling message. It claims that in Christ the Gentiles are coheirs, comembers, and copartners with the Jews. This is a radical insight for a church with Jewish roots and traditions.

The story of the Three Kings or Three Wise Men was probably a kind of haggadah or popular Jewish story fashioned from diverse biblical material intended to make a spiritual rather than historical point. This does not mean that the story is not true. It means that the truth of it is more in the total story and its meaning than in any or all of its details. The point of the story is that these men were not Israelite, but they were nonetheless open to and in search of God’s plan. The story illustrates that people of good will, regardless of their ethnic or religious background, can be responsive to the revelation of God. These men searched for and found the child, and they did not go away disappointed.

Jan 29 2025

A New Time of Hope

What do you seek in a new year? What blessing do you ask of God, who has revealed the depth of divine love in the birth of Jesus? Consider the blessing the Lord ordered Moses to give to Aaron and his sons to speak to the people of Israel. God offered them a blessing that brings divine protection through God’s gracious presence, revealing a God who intends to look kindly upon and give peace to the chosen people.

Our annual celebration of Christmas extends these same blessings into God’s plan that we become adopted into the family of God by our birth in Christ through baptism. We are given not only the freedom that comes from being made children of God, taken up into a relationship allowing us to call God Abba (Father), but also to consider ourselves as heirs and inheritors of our God’s kingdom when we pass from this life to eternal life.

The name Jesus means “God saves.” This is the message of this season: God became one of us to save us, to seek us out and bring us into communion with the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are invited to think of ourselves as part of the family of the Trinity. Mary is set before us every first day of the new year as the woman who ponders this wonderful mystery of God-become-human from the beginning. She gently extends to us an invitation to quiet reflection, prayer, and praise.

Consider/Discuss

Why do you think this feast of Mary was chosen for New Year’s Day?
Have you spent time “pondering” God’s gift of divine life to you, given in baptism?

Responding to the Word

Mary, mother of Jesus, God’s Son and our Savior, you were ever attentive to what God was asking of you, keeping the law of Moses, but also open to hearing and obeying God’s ongoing call in your life. Pray for us to be attentive to what God will say and ask of us during this new year of grace. Amen.

Jan 29 2025

Scripture Study for

Often referred to as the Aaronic priestly blessing, the reading from Numbers illustrates various roles, one played by Moses and another played by Aaron and the priests. YHWH, the personal name of God, is repeated three times, demonstrating the power of that name. God is called on to bless with good fortune and to keep from harm; to look favorably toward and to be gracious toward; to look upon and to grant peace. These petitions all ask for the same thing, namely, the blessings that make life worth living. However, they are really all asking for peace, the condition of absolute well-being.

Christ’s mission in the world is the major focus of Paul’s teaching. “The designated time” refers to that time in history when God brought the messianic expectations to fulfillment by sending the Son into the world. Referring to Christ as God’s Son establishes his divine nature; acknowledging that he was born of a woman establishes his human nature. The Christology in this passage is rich and complex. Paul contrasts servitude under the law with freedom in Christ. Still, his attitude toward the law is really not negative. He sees it as a necessary guardian that carefully watches over minors until they are mature enough to take care of themselves.

The Gospel narrative is set within the context of the family. However, the focus is really on the observance of religious practices. Circumcision was the ritual that initiated the males into the community of Israel. As observant Jews, Mary and Joseph fulfilled all of the prescriptions of the law, seeing that the child was circumcised as custom dictated. This was also the time of naming. The child is given the name told to Mary by the angel at the time of his conception. Most of what the angel had announced has now come to pass. But we all will have to wait to see how her son will acquire the throne of his father David and rule the house of Jacob forever.

Jan 29 2025

God’s Christmas Card

The beautiful feet of Isaiah’s messengers announcing peace and bringing glad tidings can seem distant from our lives. Living in the digital age can diminish any excitement at receiving a message, since they pour in all the time. E-mail, cell phones, and digital intersections like Facebook and LinkedIn bring instantaneous connection, obliterating time and space barriers once crossed by such “antiquated” forms as snail mail, the telegram, and . . . does anyone remember the rotary phone?

But still, at the heart of all communication is the word, and that is the image today’s readings present to us in speaking of the mystery of the Incarnation, our God becoming human. Luke’s baby of Bethlehem, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, is first presented in John’s Gospel as the eternal Word of creation, as life, as light shining in the darkness, as the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth, and finally, as the Word become flesh who dwelled among us, true God and true man.

Give yourself time over these days to ponder (a good Christmas word) not only the babe in the crèche but also the profound mystery of the Word of God in whom and through whom all things were made, this Word who became human, revealing the image of the invisible God. The human warmth Luke presents in his Bethlehem story is matched by John’s image of Jesus as the only Son, standing (as the New English Bible translation has it) “nearest to the Father’s heart.”

Consider/Discuss

Do you think about Jesus as the Word of God, the Son “nearest to the Father’s heart”? What do these expressions say to you?
How does the opening prologue of John’s Gospel speak to your life?

Responding to the Word

Eternal Word of the Father, you became human so we might become divine. Let your message penetrate deeply into our minds and hearts, and move us to bring your light and life into a world often threatened by darkness and death. Love us today into a new birth. Amen.

Jan 29 2025

Scripture Study for

The proclamation of good news is dramatically portrayed in the scene of the messenger running swiftly over the mountains with the message of peace and salvation. There is excitement here, for the message holds a promise of peace, good news, and salvation. In a second scene, the arm of God is bared, revealing the source of the divine power that brought about the deliverance that the city now enjoys. Just as the messenger heralds peace and salvation to Zion, so the deliverance of the city heralds the mighty power of God to the ends of the earth.

The confessional hymn in the reading from Hebrews celebrates Christ as the agent of revelation, creation, and salvation. As the reflection of God’s glory and an exact representation of God’s being, Christ is the perfect revelation of God. The author reinterprets the wisdom tradition, where we find that it was through Wisdom that God created. Since Christ is indeed the Wisdom of God, it stands to reason that all things were created through him. The author of this letter has used ancient Israelite religious understanding to illustrate and develop his Christological faith. Jesus is indeed the Son of God, the Wisdom through whom all things came to be and remain in being.

John’s lofty presentation of Christ is comparable to that found in the reading from Hebrews. Both characterize Christ as pre-existent; both depict Christ as an agent in the creation of the world. In a free-flowing manner, the author ascribes life-giving power to the Word, the kind of life that gives light. While the Word is the true light that comes into the world, John is merely the witness who testifies to the authenticity and superiority of this light. The Word has entered human history and now dwells in the midst of humankind. Women and men have been greatly enriched by this divine presence, transformed by the love that first prompted God’s revelation and Christ’s incarnation.