Year C

Jan 06 2025

Scripture Study for

Although it was the people who anointed David as their king, they believed that it was really God who had chosen him. They acknowledged the intimate bond that they shared with this new king. They were his bone and his flesh, his very kin. As king, David is characterized as a shepherd because shepherds were familiar with and personally concerned about their flocks. He is also seen as a commander or captain, one who leads the people. Both images represent the king as a leader for the people, not one who is removed from them, expecting only to be served by them.

The hymn from Colossians extols the divine character of Christ rather than his human nature. Paul characterizes Christ in several ways, each reference adding a significant dimension to our understanding of him. He is a visible manifestation of the invisible God. He enjoys priority in time and primacy in importance. He is the agent through whom all was created, and he is also the goal of all creation. He holds all things together. He is the agent of reconciliation. The sacrificial death of the human Jesus becomes the means through which the cosmic Christ reconciles all of creation with God.

Jesus claimed to be the chosen one, the Christ of God, the King of the Jews—all messianic titles. In the unsettling fashion that so often characterizes the gospel story, Jesus was ridiculed for being who he really was. What the people did not realize was that he was indeed the Messiah, the one for whom they longed; their error was in their messianic understandings and expectations. The inscription on the cross, “King of the Jews,” is significant. Jesus was indeed the King of the Jews, even though his manner of ruling did not conform to the standard of the day. True to the paradox of the gospel, what was intended as a sign of derision actually became a proclamation of faith.

Jan 06 2025

Scripture Study for

The day of the Lord is the time of the fulfillment. It is the time when justice will be realized, the scales of righteousness will be balanced, the good will be rewarded, and the evil will be punished. Israel believed that that day would be a time of vindication and rejoicing. On that day, the Lord will rise majestically for the upright, like the sun in the eastern sky that shines forth in righteousness. The healing flowing from this experience of God is the total reversal of the flaming destruction in store for the wicked.

Paul instructs the community to seek internal harmony and to strive for a positive reputation before those outside the community. Paul offers his own conduct as an example for them to follow. He reminds them that his own behavior has been beyond reproach. He has not presumed upon the hospitality of others; he is not a financial burden to them. This leads him to comment on a situation that he has been told exists within the community. Some have been acting like busybodies rather than actually being busy. Paul insists that if people want to eat, they must work like everyone else.

The Gospel reading addresses the signs that should alert the people to impending doom. These signs are demonstrations of upheaval. They include political unrest and violence as well as disturbances in the natural world, all experiences that people believed would precede the end of the age. They also portend the persecutions that the followers of Jesus will have to endure at the hands of governments, friends and acquaintances, and even family members. The persecutions they will be called upon to endure will be a witness to the name of Jesus. Though Jesus might be talking about the events that would precede the actual destruction of the glorious temple and the beloved city within which it stood, elements in his discourse suggest an end-of-time dimension to his teaching.

Jan 06 2025

Prepare for the Day of the Lord

People say that 9/11 changed us irrevocably, that we have lost for good a sense of being invulnerable. That dreadful day revealed we were no longer secure from the kind of violence that could suddenly turn our world upside down, shattering our well-being, bringing death and destruction, and leaving us in a world of fear, insecurity, and anxiety. Unfortunately, such experiences characterize so much of human history.

The destruction of the temple in 70 A.D., an event that Jesus could see coming, was an “end of the world” experience for the people of Jerusalem. The temple was for them the heart of the city, the most sacred space for Israel, God’s dwelling place among the Chosen People. Luke’s own community also knew of the persecution and hardship Jesus speaks of today. What was important then and remains important now is a willingness to give witness to the Lord in all circumstances, even when doing so threatens our world. We too can take comfort in Jesus’ words: “I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.”

Consider Jesus’ final words today: “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.” We can take comfort knowing that if we persevere, when the Day of the Lord comes, we will counted among the just who will experience it as the arrival of “the sun of justice with its healing rays.” In the meantime, as Paul advises, go about your lives, working quietly to bring about the kingdom of God.

Consider/Discuss

Don’t we already know the “Day of the Lord” every Sunday when Christ comes to us in the Eucharist?
How are you called to witness to the Lord in your life?

Responding to the Word

God who comes, we ask that you give us the grace to persevere through whatever trials and upheavals come into our lives. Help us to live in the awareness that your Son is with us and continues to draw us more deeply into communion with you through the working of the Holy Spirit.

Jan 06 2025

Taking the Long View

To get the full impact of the first reading, I strongly suggest you go to your Bible and read Second Maccabees, Chapter 7. You wonder what the mother of the Maccabees would have said to the Sadducees trying to trap Jesus over belief in the resurrection of the body. How would this woman, who watched the thugs of a sadistic king cruelly torture with whips and scourges her seven sons over their refusal to eat pork, ever have been able to encourage her sons to remain faithful to God’s law without a belief in the resurrection? This belief was her rock. It justified her taking the long view, that their death, in fidelity to God, gives way to a bodily resurrection.

For the Sadducees, however, faith was based on the Torah (the Pentateuch). Only what was written in the Torah had to be believed. Since there is no mention of resurrection, they rejected it. And they use a story of a woman marrying seven brothers to trap Jesus. Jesus says two things in response. First, what happens in the next life is going to be different, not the same old, same old. Second, when God spoke the divine Name to Moses, God did not say, “I was the God of your dead ancestors.” Rather, God said, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Implication: God is a God of the living—in God all are alive.

Couple that with Jesus’ own resurrection and you have good reason for this hope we carry in our hearts.

Consider/Discuss

What does belief in the resurrection of the body tell you about God?
What does it tell you about your own body? Does it have any implications for how you treat your body?

Responding to the Word

God of the living, we thank you for the promise you have given us in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. We thank you for the faith that tells us that those who die in him will rise in him. May this promise, rooted in our baptism, continue to give us hope in our difficulties.

Jan 06 2025

Scripture Study for

The reason given for the murders described in the first reading leaves no doubt in our minds that these are genuine martyrs, faithful Israelites who died for their faith. The real point of this narrative is the faith in resurrection. Early Israel believed that justice would be accomplished in this life, either during the time of those directly involved or in the time of their descendants. The idea of individual reward or punishment after death became a major issue after the experience of the Exile. This reading reflects the shift that took place in Israel’s thinking around the time of the Maccabean revolt (c. 167 B.C.E.).

Paul prays for encouragement and strength for the Thessalonians. Though he asks that they pray for him, he is not concerned with his own personal needs, but with the progress of the gospel that he preaches. When he also asks them to pray for his own deliverance from opposition, he is less concerned with the consequences of the persecution in his life than with how it might set up obstacles for the progress of the gospel. He places his trust in the faithfulness of the Lord. It is Christ who will strengthen the believers, be their protection, and keep them on the path of righteousness.

The Sadducees, who claimed to be descendants of Zadok, the high priest at the time of David, were a conservative, aristocratic group who cooperated with the Romans and enjoyed a certain amount of privilege as a result. Unlike the Pharisees, they did not believe in the resurrection, and they used ridicule to demonstrate that the belief in it was foolish. In response to them, Jesus employs a very traditional Jewish method of argument. He points out that if one is in covenant with God, not even death can sever the bond of that union. His method of interpreting may be unfamiliar to us today, but Jesus employed it effectively to counter the challenge of the Sadducees.