Breaking the Word

2^nd Week of Advent, Monday – 5^th December 2022 — Gospel:  Lk 5,17-26

Basic need for Forgiveness

In healing the paralytic, Jesus emphasizes on the importance of forgiveness of sins, which is the basic need of every person. Probably the paralytic’s friends were motivated by their friend’s physical need rather than his spiritual need. In fact their actions in getting round this crowd by letting the paralytic down through the roof is a great illustration of the same. However, Jesus used this miracle to prove his claim to have authority to forgive sins. His power in the visible realm over paralysis is manifested in his authority to forgive sins in the spiritual realm.  From a human point of view, it’s easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” since there’s no way to verify it. From God’s perspective, to forgive sins is more difficult, since it involved the sacrifice of his Son. Jesus took that which is humanly more difficult – healing the man- and used it to verify his claim to forgive his sins. His forgiveness of sins explain two great truths: 1) Only God can forgive sins and Jesus is God; 2) Only man can bear man’s penalty for sin and Jesus is man.

2^nd Sunday of Advent – 04^th December 2022 — Gospel: Mt 3, 1-12

The Messiah’s Herald

In all the four gospels, the narrative of Jesus’ ministry preface with an account of John the Baptist. John’s contemporaries viewed him as Jesus’ forerunner and the evangelists presented him as Jesus’ herald. John’s command to repent for the kingdom is same as Jesus’ opening proclamation in Galilee (3,7; 4,17). Similarly, the opponents are addressed by John and Jesus as “You brood of vipers” (3,7; 12,34; 23,33). In this way Matthew draws John and Jesus closer and subtly presents John as a witness to Jesus. In another sense, John seems to have proclaimed to his followers the immediate appearance of a human but supernaturally empowered Messiah (Mt 3,11) that recalls the anticipated Messiah of Is 11,1-5.

Though John and Jesus proclaim the same message, their missions are quite different. John is the forerunner, preparing for Jesus with a water baptism of repentance. Jesus will baptize with “the Holy Spirit and fire”. Both cleansing water and refining fire are prophetic images expressing the outpouring of God’s Spirit in the final age. This baptismal expression of Jesus’ work refers to his whole ministry of preaching, healing and forgiving. His ministry is like a harvester who separates the wheat from the chaff by tossing the harvested grain in the air with the winnowing fork. The righteous are like the good wheat gathered into the granary while the unrepentant are like the useless chaff to be swept up and burnt. In recalling the first coming of Jesus in humility, the season of advent focuses on the second coming of Christ as judge. God’s love that comes down at Christmas is remembered as a divine love that is fierce in its judgement of those who resist love’s demands. John the Baptist gives warning of that repentance, which must not be procrastinated.