The Treasure of the Word: Commentary on Biblical Readings for Sundays, Feast Days, and Solemnities, Cycle C

Advent

God advances towards his people and invites them to advance towards him.

Salvation is the meeting of God and man.

First Sunday of Advent

Vigilant Expectation

Readings: Jer. 33: 14–16; Ps. 25: 1, 4–5, 8–9, 10–14; 1 Thess. 3: 12–4: 2; Luke 21: 25–28, 34–36

O ne of the threads that run through the story of God’s loving relationship with his people is hope. Biblical hope is the conviction that the Word of God will come to pass, the belief that God keeps his word. The prophet Jeremiah foretold that the Davidic dynasty would be restored shortly after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC, but as Israel’s years of exile dragged on, many Israelites gave up on the prospect of the dynasty’s restoration, abandoned the religion of their fathers, and embraced the religion of the nations among which they lived, for they believed it was time to move on with their lives and make the best of their circumstances. It was in such a sociopolitical and geo-theological context that Jeremiah was sent to address the people, telling them that the Lord said, The days are surely coming … when I will fulfil the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah (Jer. 33: 14).

The days of Israel’s and Judah’s breaking of the covenant with God were the days of man. The days of sin that led to the exile were the days of man. But, the prophet says, the days made by the Lord, days of restoration, days of renewal, days of salvation, were coming.

The Lord, who has power over life and death and is the Lord of history, declares through his prophet that in his own time, in his own days, he will cause a virtuous branch to grow from the tree of David, which the exiles considered a dead stump, and that this virtuous branch will bear the fruits of fidelity and integrity. God had promised to establish an everlasting dynasty of his servant David, but he did not explain to David how or when that would happen. It is God’s business to establish dynasties and make other promises for his people; it is the duty of his people to believe God’s promises.

We are the exiles in Jeremiah’s audience. Our experiences of wars, natural disasters, hunger, disease, broken homes and relationships, distress, and financial hardships often make us suspect God, think that he is no longer in control, or become frustrated that he doesn’t work on our timetables, and this leads us to give up on God and take charge of our lives, work according to our own schedules.

David represents the community of the exiles, showing us that God would cause something new to grow, something the exiles could not imagine, from the roots of the desperate situation of exile.

This virtuous branch, this Son of David, is Jesus of Nazareth. The fruits of his life were goodness, mercy, honesty, and integrity. His presence gave a new name to the city of the people that God dwells among. His days among men became the days of the Lord’s going and coming among his people. His ministry encouraged people to believe in God’s presence among them, welcomed home exiles of sin and those who dwelt in the darkness of false notions of God, and those who lived in the valleys of human brokenness, discrimination, injustice, and sickness.

The Apostle Paul wishes that all returnees from exile grow in hope, one of the most important virtues. In his letter to the Thessalonians, he writes, May the Lord be generous in increasing your love and make you love one another and the whole human race as much as we love you (1 Thess. 3: 12 NJB). The Israelites’ failure to love the Lord above all things and above all gods and failure to love other people were the causes of exile, and love is the lifestyle of those who have been called back from exile, of the people who have been restored.

These readings admonish believers to wait patiently but actively for the Lord’s saving intervention, and tell us that waiting in this way, in joyful hope for the manifestation of God’s glory, exhibit love, the virtue of all who lift up their souls to the Lord. Waiting actively and patiently for the day of the Lord means listening to the sounds of his love in the daily events that unfold around us, it means unmasking false gods, it means making progress in imitating God’s love, it means believing that God’s timetable is wisely drawn, that his time is the best.

The good news calms the upheavals of life, earthquakes of conflicts, storms of diseases, blasts of sociopolitical and economic crises, for it is the news of unfailing, watchful, and caring presence of a loving Father. The good news is that we should stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand (Luke 21: 28 NJB) because God has been and always will be in full control of history, and the Saviour will come on the day of the Lord, the day of salvation from evil and sin, the day of joy for believers.

Second Sunday of Advent

Making Our Lives Ready for the Lord

Readings: Bar. 5: 1–9; Ps. 126: 1–6; Phil. 1: 3–6, 8–11; Luke 3: 1–6

L ast Sunday, the prophet Jeremiah emphasised that God would fulfil his promise to restore the exiles to their homeland. This Sunday, the prophet Baruch, Jeremiah’s associate, addresses the same people in Diaspora by explaining what their imminent return would be like. God, the master artist, designed Israel, adorned her with streams full of life. However, through its stubbornness, Israel changed the topography of its heart until it was strewn with pebbles of wickedness, undulations of idolatry, and valleys of injustice and inhabitable for God. The exile was the result of this unfaithfulness to the covenant; the return from exile would be God’s restoration of what Israel had messed up.

The return is a two-part event: Israel returns to its homeland, and God returns to Israel through a restored relationship. The return is a cause for joy. Jerusalem, take off your dress of sorrow and distress, put on the beauty of the glory of God forever … Since God means to show your splendour to every nation under heaven … For God has decreed the flattening of each high mountain, of the everlasting hills, the filling of the valleys to make the ground level so that Israel can walk in safety under the glory of God (Baruch 5: 1–2).

The dress of sorrow is sinfulness, the garment that those who break God’s law put on. To disobey the precepts of the Lord and to walk one’s own path is to put on this dress. Those who freely obey the precepts of the Lord instead wear the beautiful dress of God’s glory. To disobey the Lord’s precepts is to expose oneself to danger; to obey the precepts of the Lord is to identify with God and to walk in safety. To disobey the Lord’s precepts is to expose oneself to the scorching heat of exile; to obey the Lord’s precepts is to take shelter under the shade of the law, as Psalm 91: 1 tells us: He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty (NKJV).

God’s plan to give his people the law and to return them to their homeland is a marvel that gladdens the heart. The culmination of this two-part return is what Paul calls the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1: 6), and it is a day on which the exiles will be crowned for their good works of faith. In the meantime, the Lord prepared for this return to full relationship with his people: To the first Israel, he sent the herald Baruch to tell the people to prepare their cities, their roads, and their homes. To the second Israel, he sent John the Baptist. These heralds are different but their message is the same: the King is coming, get ready, fill in the valleys of despair, lower the hills of self-righteousness, straighten the winding paths of conflicts. Making our lives and world fit for the King in these ways is each person’s responsibility.

At the time of John the Baptist’s preaching in the region of Jordan, the spiritual condition of Israel was like a desert because it refused to be fertilised by the waters of obedience to the law, and the scorching heat of infidelity had sucked dry its virtues, and dry wind and dust had deprived it of green pastures, of fruitfulness. John the Baptist lived and received his mission in this desert: The word of God came to John the son of Zechariah, in the desert (Luke 3: 2). Luke implies that John was a fertile spot in the desert of Israel. It is in this fertile spot that God laid the foundation of the restoration of his people and from which the seed of the Word would spread to the rest of the desert.

Luke describes John’s ministry as crying in the desert with and for the miserable state of his people. The loss of Israel’s fertility is a serious cause for mourning. This reminds me of an experience while on pilgrimage in the desert of Sinai. Suddenly a strong wind began to blow and kick up dust. My companions and I then heard a long whistling sound. Our dedicated Arab guide asked us, Did you hear that sound?

Yes, we answered.

And do you know where it came from and what it means?

We all said no, and our guide explained that the sound came from the desert – that it was the desert’s lamentation for having lost the virtue of fertility nature had bestowed on it.

The cry of John is a whistling in the desert, a lamentation for Israel. John also cries out to God to have mercy on Israel and visit it without further delay. To hasten the divine visit, John calls upon Israel to do something about its mental topography. When John says, Prepare a way for the Lord (Luke 3: 4), he implies there are many ways in Israel but that they are not God’s ways. Rather, they are the people’s ways, ways that lead to death, and ways that are unworthy of a people who belong to God. When John says, Make his paths straight (Luke 3: 4), he calls on the people to straighten the crookedness of their hearts. When John says, Let every mountain and hill be levelled (Luke 3: 4), he calls on his contemporaries to do something about the protrusions, undulations, and outgrowths of sin that characterise their world.

The voice of John in the desert of the world has not faded away. John is still crying out, and we can hear those cries in the Word of God, in the signs of the times, in the inspired teachings, liturgy, and pastoral activities of the church. That voice still demands that we smooth all rough roads, level every mountain, fill in every valley, and straighten all winding ways so that all humanity will see the salvation of God.

Third Sunday of Advent

Response to John’s Preaching

Readings: Zeph. 3: 14–18; Isa. 12: 2–6; Phil. 4: 4–7; Luke 3: 10–18

I n last Sunday’s readings, the prophet Baruch reminded the people in Diaspora of the imminence of their return to their homeland and the restoration of their relationship with God. In this Sunday’s readings, the prophet Zephaniah (who lived and preached early in the reign of King Josiah, about 640 to 630 BC) continues to preach about the imminence of the day of the Lord, telling us that it is the day of judgement for evil, the day of triumph for the faithful, the day of salvation, the day which every believer should look forward to with excitement.

When John the Baptist appeared in the area of Jordan proclaiming the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, many people saw in him signs that the day of the Lord preached by the prophets was nigh. Many people, including some unlikely sinners, asked for help in the reformation of their lives. John had stirred public desire for spiritual renewal. All classes of people asked this prophet, this man of God, What must we do? (Luke 3: 10).

Questions about God, life, faith, renewal, connection with the divine, connection with neighbours, and treating others like children of God are universal concerns, and the people expressed these by asking John, Should we change residences or quit our professions? What should we do in this complex and complicated world? The Baptist responded by telling his audience not to flee because God could be welcomed, worshipped, and served wherever there was truth, honour, uprightness, love, and good, as Paul exhorted all believers awaiting the Lord’s return (Phil. 4: 18). God can be welcomed anywhere, even where there is brokenness, pain, loss, and need, and by anyone. Our efforts at perfection do not qualify us for God’s attention. Rather, our sinfulness attracts divine attention. We welcome God where we are; God saves us where we are.

Thus, John the Baptist says that there is nothing wrong with the world but there is something wrong with human attitudes. The Word of God has a unique message and demands from every person and group from every generation genuine religion, or applied faith. If anyone has two tunics, he must share with the man who has none, and the one with something to eat must do the same (Luke 3: 10). Each must serve God from where he or she is.

Luke carefully singles out two categories of people who approached John for spiritual guidance – tax collectors and soldiers, two occupations the public considered the most soaked in and stained by the filth of sin – to represent the sinfulness of all humanity. Members of these occupations took advantage of their positions as officers of Caesar, and those who failed to comply with their demands got themselves into serious trouble. Tax collectors were notorious for intimidation and cheating and soldiers for intimidation and extortion. That members of these groups went out of their way to seek direction for their lives is a remarkable way Luke emphasised the radical universality of the revolution that this prophet preached. It must have surprised the tax collectors, soldiers, and other audience members that Jesus did not make harsher demands on them, but this is further proof that God’s requirements are different from ours.

God still sends Johns to cry out in the desert of our world to remind us of the imminence of the day of the Lord. Today during every Advent, believers are expected to seek out and ask them, What about us? What must we do?

John’s answer to the first Israel is still valid: If anyone has two tunics he must share with the man who has none, and the one with something to eat must do the same. To love and care for each other are laws that do not expire and that cannot be surpassed. We are urged to practice the politics of compassion, economics of compassion, sociality of compassion, morality of compassion, religion of compassion. Each is called to serve God well where God had set him or her and with whatever God has placed at his or her disposal. Life is like a game of cards, and we’re expected to play courageously with the cards that we’ve been dealt and not complain about those cards or demand that they be changed. In this way, we see that it is not necessary to flee our environment or trade to show our decision to live for God, but we must abandon any attitude that goes against the authority of God in our lives.

John’s answer obliges all those awaiting the Saviour to contradict the devil by practising good works wherever they are and by sharing their common experiences of joy and anguish. Wherever this is done, there the expectancy for the coming of the Messiah is high.

The Fourth Sunday of Advent

Divine Surprise

Readings: Mic. 5: 2–5; Ps. 80: 1–4, 14–15, 17–18; Heb. 10: 5–10; Luke 1: 39–45

T he prophet Micah preached towards the end of the eighth century BC, when hopes for the restoration of the Davidic dynasty were high. He identified Bethlehem Ephrathah, one of the least of the clans of Judah, as the clan into which the future Saviour King would be born (Micah 5: 2). God’s ways are surprising.

God manifests great things from humble beginnings. Adam, made in God’s own image, was created from dust; David was the youngest and the least experienced of the children of Jesse; Bethlehem was one of the least of the clans of Judah; Mary was a village girl; Joseph was a peasant. The most holy chose to come into the world of sinners through a humble route. The origin of all things appeared in the bosom of the tender. The most powerful arrived among men’s lowliness. The most honourable came not along a highway but along a footpath. The story of God’s relationship with his people is a mosaic of God’s surprising ways.

It is a surprise that the King of the universe assumed the fragility of a child; it is a surprise that the Son of God was not born in the headquarters of the political and religious governments but in the suburbs of little Bethlehem. It is a surprise that the First of beings showed his presence through the unknown.

It is a surprise that God assumed human flesh in the womb of an unwed mother. By choosing to appear among us through this unlikely channel, the Son of God redeemed human crookedness from within. According to Luke, as soon as Mary received the message from Archangel Gabriel, she went as quickly as she could to a town in the hill country of Judah to share with her cousin Elizabeth the mystery in which she had got involved, a mystery she could not fully comprehend (Luke 1: 39). The good news of God’s intervention in our lives is something that needs to be shared. No one can receive the good news without being put in motion to share it with others. Mary of Nazareth was the first missionary of the New or Second Testament, the first who had received, believed, and lived the good news to share it.

Luke describes this meeting of Mary and Elizabeth. Elizabeth, herself a beneficiary of God’s grace and a participant in God’s plan, understood the mystery of Mary’s story, for she understood God’s work. The two women rejoiced at God’s work, performing a celebratory dance. Those who are God’s partners in the unfolding of his plan recognise each other as Elizabeth recognised Mary.

Micah’s prophecy applies to Mary of Nazareth, for it was this simple village girl who was chosen to be the mother of the Messiah, and Micah’s prophecy applies to Elizabeth, for this elderly pious lady was the first person to believe and rejoice that God’s promise was being fulfilled. Micah’s prophecy also applies to the church, for it is a community of broken humans, yet God is present in their midst. The church has no sophisticated arsenal, but it subdues the powers of evil; it is not a model of powerful democracy, yet many people participate in its mission; it has no expertise in science, yet it teaches the most important and life-transforming truths: that we are dust and to dust we shall return and that we have the gift of eternal life.

The author of the letter to the Hebrews highlights more divine surprises. It is a surprise to read that the Son of Man came into the world not with the intention of working for his own glory but to do the will of his heavenly Father: God, here I am! I am coming to obey your will (10: 9). Usually, people work to realise their own dreams and pursue their own ambitions, but the Son of Man’s primary aim was completely different; he came to fulfil his Father’s will.

Jesus meant what he said. Throughout his life, he willed what the Father willed for him on behalf of every true believer who comes into this world. The Father did not impose his will on Jesus; Jesus freely chose what the Father willed for him. All people are called to follow the example of Jesus, to submit freely to the Father’s will for them. Like Jesus, we can and should declare: We have come into existence by your grace, Lord; we have come into your world to love and care for each other; we are here in your world to do your will. By believing in Jesus as the Son of God, by deciding to follow him, by being his disciples, we have come into the world of faith. Living in this world means declaring, Jesus, we have come into the world of discipleship, we have come to think like you, speak like you, love like you. We have come to do your will.

Our Christian faith is an adherence to Jesus’s motto, God, here I am! I am come to do your will. Every prayer we pray, each biblical passage we read, every sacrament we received, and any good work we do is a repetition of Jesus’s motto. We have no other business in the Bethlehem of our lives than to do the will of God, than to will what God wills for us.

It is surprising that there are some who are in existence by God’s grace and who live and move in God’s world yet who do not acknowledge God’s will. It is surprising that human beings choose the will of man, which kills, over the will of God, which saves. It is surprising that God does not force his will on disobedient people; it is surprising that a loving God allows his children to exercise their freedom, even with terrible consequences.

Christmas: Mass during the Night

The Light of Men

Readings: Gen. 1: 2; Isa. 9: 2–7; Ps. 96: 1–4, 11–13;

Titus 2: 11–14; Luke 2: 1–16

T he liturgy of this solemn night recalls the condition of nothing before it became something through the creative act of God. Before God’s creative intervention, earth was like night: dark, cold, deadly silent, and absent of life. The author of the book of Genesis described this situation thus: Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, with a divine wind sweeping over the waters (1: 2 NJB).

God brought about Christmas to re-create man in his own image after it became deformed by sin. Isaiah describes the world in which the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, was born as being without light, and says that the Son of God born among men will be the light shining in the darkness. The prophet also describes those of the world in which Jesus was born as being without a clear idea of God and, hence, living in bondage. For the prophet, the coming in the flesh of the Son of God would be a great difference in the world: The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined (Isa. 9: 2)

The Son of God, born into a world of darkness and shadow, is what the human soul secretly yearns for, because to people living in the shadow of doubt, he is certainty. To people living through conflicts and wars, he is the Prince of Peace. To people who are hurting, he is healing. To people living with addiction, he is meaning. To people struggling with confusion, he is a wonderful counsellor. To people ruled and oppressed by dictators and gods, he is a mighty Saviour. To people floating aimlessly in the fluctuations of life, he is the eternal Father. To people oppressed by guilt, he is a liberator. To those entangled in a vicious circle of sin, the Son given to men at Christmas is salvation. God the Father plunged his Son, who freely chose to be plunged, into the depth of human weakness, struggle, pain, anxiety, hope, fears, and tears. He was born into the darkness and shadows of our lives in order to bring us to the light. Christianity is the good news that help has come from outside ourselves and our world to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, to forgive our sins and give us the grace to do what is right. The birth of Jesus is the fulfilment of the words of Isaiah. The message of Christmas is that God descended to our level in order to raise us to his level.

The gospel of Christmas is that God so loved the world that he chose to become a human creature. Jesus went through human experience totally dependent on God and taught every person to do the same. The coming of the Son of God in the flesh gave a new name to humanity, to the New Israel, to those who receive him: The Lord’s delight (Isa. 62: 2).

The Psalmist invites his community to celebrate the presence of the wonderful counsellor, mighty Saviour, eternal Father, Prince of Peace, light of hope with a special melody, a new song. Christmas is God’s act of love, a masterpiece, a salvific gesture that calls for an original response in the form of a new spirit, a new song, a new dance, a new life, a new resolution to love. It is a new impetus to imitate God, another reason to believe God’s Word and promise. The new song suggested by the Psalmist is to be sung and danced in all the pathways and highways of our world, in all our squares and on all our corners, for the gospel of Christmas cannot be kept hidden. God’s marvellous work and glory are present in our joys and sorrows, in our hopes and anxieties, in our health and sickness, in our successes and failures, in our life and death. They are to be declared loudly.

The birth of the Son given to men at Christmas is the revelation of God’s grace and wonderful light to the whole human race (Titus 2: 11). Jesus is the grace of God, the gift of salvation that equips believers to make healthy choices. Believers do not discover Jesus by their own power; he is revealed to them. The revelation of Jesus happened at the time Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be made of the whole inhabited world (Luke 2: 1). Joseph, a just man, obeyed the decree and went to Bethlehem to be registered with Mary, who was pregnant. Because the town was overcrowded with people who had travelled there for the census, it was difficult to get accommodation, and when Mary’s time came, the Son given to men at Christmas was born in an animal’s feeding trough.

The story of the birth of Jesus during the census organised by Quirinius is a theological masterpiece woven to emphasise Jesus’s relevance to the political and social lives of institutions and individuals. Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem, of a descendent of David. It is now time for him to be born in the Bethlehem of every heart, every family, every community and institution. God ordained his Son to be born at the moment of the census conducted by Quirinius in