The Christmas crèche and lights are gone. In the liturgical calendar we’re now in “ordinary time.” Ordinary doesn’t refer to the quality of the liturgies but to the ordering of weeks after Christmas and after Easter, e.g., second Sunday in ordinary time, third Sunday, etc.
It’s also what we folks from the north call “winter.”
You may have read about a couple who decided to go to the Caribbean for a week to escape an unusually cold mid-west winter. They had jobs and couldn’t coordinate their schedules to fly together. The husband flew first, checked into their hotel room, found a computer and decided to email his wife. But he left out one letter in her email address.
The email accidentally went to a widow who just returned from her husband’s funeral. She fainted after reading the email, which stated:
To: My Wife
They now have computers down here. Everything is ready for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you. PS. It sure is hot down here.
So much for messaging.
Today in Isaiah, Paul and John, we hear various titles ascribed to Jesus. He is the Jewish Passover “lamb” who saves us through his death and resurrection. He is the “son” who is one with the God of Israel. He is the “Christ,” the long-expected messiah who inaugurates God’s kingdom of justice and peace and freedom and truth and love. He is the sovereign “Lord” to whom we pledge our ultimate allegiance. He is the “servant,” the “light” who illumines answers to the fundamental questions about life, e.g., what on earth am I here for.
Yes, today’s word ascribes various titles to Jesus. John’s title stands out for me: “Behold, the lamb of God.” When John saw Jesus on the banks of the Jordan River, he pointed out that Jesus was the sacrificial lamb who would re-establish a right relationship for us with God and one another. In our earthly death, there will be eternal life.
The author of Isaiah takes us back in our imaginations to the sixth century before Jesus (the 500s), to the Jews exiled in Babylonia (what we know today as Iraq).
This passage is a poem, a song, about the vocation of a “servant of God” who will bring hope to a people who have lost hope in the future. This “servant” will save all peoples, a “light” to all.
The early Christian community saw in this “servant” Jesus, whose vocation or calling was to be our way to eternal life, our truth who sets us free from false isms, our light who guides us in our earthly journey toward our heavenly dwelling place.
Paul in his letter to the Christian community at Corinth, a seaport city in Greece, speaks about his own vocation as an apostle. God through Jesus by the power of the Spirit has bestowed his grace and peace upon us. Paul then challenges us to live a life of virtue that’s worthy of our calling, to become a holy people.
In the Gospel, John points out Jesus as the Lamb of God, an allusion to the Lamb in the Passover meal and the sacrificial lamb in Jewish temple worship. John then saw Jesus coming up out of the Jordan waters and the Spirit of God confirming Jesus as “Son of God.”
This Jesus, truly human and truly divine, who through his death/resurrection by the power of the Spirit established our friendship with God again, is gloriously alive in his community of disciples, the one Church He founded, to continue his saving ministry until He comes again in power and glory at the end-time to create a “new heaven and a new earth.”
Jesus prayed that this community would always be one. Yet over the centuries it has divided into many communities: Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants: Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians etc. And that is why we have a week of prayer for Christian Unity January 19-25. All Christians profess one Lord, one faith and one baptism. But they have split throughout the centuries into different and sometimes opposing traditions.
As we pray with Jesus, the night before he died, that “we all may be one,” we might ask ourselves “why should I belong to this global Catholic community of disciples of Jesus?” Let me give you a few good reasons:
1. We are a worldwide community of believers (1.2 billion plus people, rich and poor, black and white, American, European, Asian and African), a family that celebrates the presence of the living Christ, especially in word and sacrament. Jesus Christ is gloriously alive among us, in his Church, and God is already transforming us into new creatures.
2. We are a community with splendid heroes and heroines. We are the Church of Francis and Clare of Assisi, Dominic, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, Vincent de Paul, Therese of Lisieux, Mother Teresa—and the litany goes on and on. These are people worth imitating in our own quest to realize our true purpose in life.
3. We also are a global community that lives under a huge tent or umbrella. Yes, some are good and others are not so good; in fact, some are downright dysfunctional. Yet we must continually make amends, strive always to do the right thing, forgive ourselves and forgive one another, let go of burdens of guilt for behaviors done or not done, let go of bitterness for wrongs done to us, and get our lives back on track: recommitting ourselves to Jesus, our way our truth and our life. Every day should be a fresh start into eternity.
4. Lastly, we are a community that takes a stand on peace and justice. Our world-wide Catholic community sponsors and staffs shelters for the homeless and for battered women’s safety, hospices for the terminally ill, soup kitchens, AIDS treatment centers, literacy programs, day-care centers, hospitals and schools throughout the world. Hundreds of Catholic Relief and Refugee agencies attempt to meet the basic needs of displaced and poor people.
Yes, this Jesus in today’s Gospel is the foundation of our world-wide faith community, the Church Jesus founded to continue his saving ministry. And we give thanks to God for this faith community to which we belong: a community that calls us to a life with God here and now, and to eternal life where we shall be like God and see God face-to-face. Amen.
