The First week (1:19-51) Day one (1:19-28) The testimony of John the Baptist
Posted on March 7th 2010 in St. John's Gospel
After the Prologue, St John describes the first week of Jesus’ public life which concludes with the Marriage Feast of Cana, symbolically echoing the seventh day of creation. There will be a cosmic reconciliation in Jesus Christ at the end of time Another abiding theme throughout this Gospel is the imagery of a court trial and the vocabulary used by the Evangelist of confession, interrogation, testimony, all carrying legal connotations.
The first day belongs to John the Baptist who acts as a witness to Jesus. The expression used by the Evangelist in answer to ‘the Jews’ from Jerusalem was, ‘He confessed and did not deny but confessed’ that ‘I am not the Christ’. The emphasis on the correct understanding is central to St John. Jesus Christ, the Word, gives meaning to John the Baptist, the voice. The expression is also a conscious echo of Jesus’ own usage of ‘I am’ with its own allusion to the name of God revealed to Moses in the burning bush, ‘I am who I am’. The Baptist must act as a witness who prepares for the coming of the Messiah, and so applies the quote from Isaiah to himself. His ministry is essential otherwise the arrival of the Messiah will pass unrecognised. ‘The heart has to be opened, levelling their pride and filling their emptiness’.
When confronted with further questioning from ‘the Jews’, John the Baptist makes the distinction between his baptism of water, and the Baptism of Jesus Christ which will involve the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit marks the beginning of the eschatological age, and thus a break from Judaism. ‘The Jews’ are looking for continuity and are unable to venture beyond their own categories. Here is something new.
Though St John reports the Baptists’ denial of being another Elijah, the final remark concerning the location of John the Baptist’s ministry echoes that of Elijah who, according to pious Jewish legend, was thought to have been assumed into heaven near Bethany beyond the Jordan.
God’s love will triumph even as we travel the hard road of lamentation to discover it
Posted on March 7th 2010 in Weekly messages
Many years ago I remember attending an evening with a famous actress who began by reading out the last letters of Second World War airmen from both sides of the conflict. The aspect that immediately struck the audience were the similar emotions that infused each letter, the love of their families and the sacrifices they would probably, and indeed, did undergo for their countries. The similarity of content spoke evocatively of the ultimate futility of war. None of them publically doubted the war’s legitimacy, but the terrible cost of human conflict was immediately visible. Something of the same may be seen in the ubiquity of images of mothers weeping for their lost sons, whether in South America, Israel, Gaza, Iraq or Iran. This lament of lost life, of lost youth, of the shattered dreams of a common old age reflect that Old Testament matriarch, Rachel, who wept for the death of her lost sons. (Jeremiah 31:15). The ability to lament is fundamental to the human condition, because it brings together two seemingly opposed ideas. On the one hand anger and distress at being the victim of violence to oneself or to one’s family, with anger towards God Himself for allowing this to happen; and, on the other, faith in the power of God to bring comfort and restitution. The ability to lament is only really possible from within a faith perspective that takes God’s existence and comfort as truths in themselves. The power to lament, coming as it does from the heart of faith, can be extremely unsettling. The appalling cries of Israeli and Palestinian bereaved mothers that one sees all too frequently on television testify to the religious fervour of lament.
The most famous laments in the Old Testament are those of Jeremiah, which address the deportation of the Jews to Babylon, and the destruction of Jerusalem. These religious poems were seen by the Church Fathers of the first centuries as applying to Jesus Christ, and have been used in Christian worship in Holy Week for nearly two thousand years. The birth of Jesus Christ was greeted with angels proclaiming news of great joy to the shepherds, ‘Today a Saviour has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord’. Yet only a little while later, St Matthew gives a terse one sentence account of the Massacre of the Innocents, coupled with the comment that this fulfilled the Prophecy of Jeremiah of Rachel weeping for her children. The birth of Jesus Christ comes amidst the profound lamentations of the world, amongst those who think they have been abandoned by God.
The reality of suffering that is associated with the birth of Jesus Christ points to the way that He will offer a ‘solution’ to the question of evil. This Sunday’s Gospel begins with the rejection of false ideas about the cause of suffering as it being solely punishment owing to sin. Jesus alludes to the inheritance of sin, owing to the fall of Adam and Eve. This inheritance is revealed in the sinful structures of violence that exist through the accumulation of individual sinful acts, both of addition and appeasement in front of evil. The only way out of this spiral of decline is to move in the other direction through the gift of faith. The Sunday Gospel continues with the parable of the fig tree. The gardener suggests waiting another year, ‘the year of my life now’, to see if the tree might produce fruit of reconciliation and peace.
Jesus takes on the sin of the world in His death on the Cross, which includes this inheritance, and all the sinful actions that have constituted it, as well as the anger that human beings attach to this reality. This is the first pole of lament. The second pole Jesus offers through His Resurrection, thus giving hope of absolute comfort, and of a real place of eternal living. The love of God does triumph even if we, as believers, have to travel a hard road of lamentation to discover this fact. This is never done once only. The journey needs to be repeated time and again, as we confront the pain and loss in our own lives, and that of the world. The Good News is that the answer is found through the journey and not imposed from above. The answer to suffering is found in the accompaniment that Jesus Christ offers through His Cross and Resurrection, and with which he accompanies us throughout our lives.
Lent is the time for sacrificing self, making more space both for God and neighbour.
Posted on February 21st 2010 in
Many years ago a Dominican Friar amused a group of undergraduates about the realities of Lent inside a religious community. He explained how different members of his community would give up cigarettes, wine and stronger drink. However, it was not the abstainers doing the penance, but the rest of the community who had to put up with their irascibility for the duration of Lent. I am not sure he was being completely serious, but the audience could grasp his point.
The practices of Lent need not show on the outside, nor should they force family members to become unwitting accomplices to our bad moods owing to a lack of sugar, coffee, alcohol and the like. The privations of Lent are neither meant to be like hurdles in an obstacle race that one must jump over to reach the finishing line of Easter. That said, it is good to give up something simple and enjoyable over Lent just to remind us that, though it hardly ever looks like it in the modern world, God is the first cause of all that exists. It is too easy both for the secular individual, who never darkens the door of a religious building, and for the religious individual, with their religious practices, to think that everything relies on themselves alone. If only I could earn more, or consume more, then I would be happy. If only I said more prayers I would then become closer to God. It might well be the case that one could become happier with more money, and it could well be possible to become closer to God through a greater prayer life but, if the focus is all on oneself, then the answer is probably no.
The demands for the Lenten fast are there for us to make space for God in our lives, and in so doing make space for others. Hence fasting, the denial of self, is joined to prayer to make space for God, and almsgiving to make space for our neighbour. In a very simple way the time spent devoted to one’s favourite television programme, or surfing the internet, might become the time for spiritual reading, or the time to sit and talk with our families, or call or write to a long lost friend. Almsgiving does of course involve giving money to charity but it must also mean something more.
The most precious gift we possess is our time, and to share it with God or with others is therefore a major sacrifice. The contemporary world fills time with attainment targets whether at work or even in the home. Time should not be wasted to the modern mind, but the ability to waste time together is one of the marks of true love. This is not about doing nothing necessarily, but of consciously being together and present to each other, irrespective of other pressing and selfish demands. This might become one of our Lenten practices, and might well lead to the rediscovery of God and of our neighbour.
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