Breaking the Word

1^st Week of Ordinary Time, Monday – 10^th January 2022 — Gospel: Mark 1:14-20

Kingdom as a Gift and a demand

Mark portrays Jesus’ proclamation of the coming kingdom not only as a gift (“good news”), but also with a demand (“to repent”). This proclamation takes place at the time of fulfillment in the coming of the Messiah, the Son of God. Interestingly, Is 60,22 speaks of “the time” when God would bring about the restoration of Israel. Is 61,1 characterizes “the time” of the Lord’s favour as a time of preaching the good news. Is 52,7 connects the preaching of “good news” with the proclamation of God’s reign. Possibly the latter half of Isaiah lies behind Jesus’ eschatological vision, and this is the source of his understanding of the kingdom. Thus, the good news is that God wishes to establish his rule over the world and expects humans to respond to build his kingdom. It is the same God who promises the kingdom to sinners by their repentance and who calls disciples to give up all that they have to follow him. The four disciples with their willingness to throw themselves completely for Jesus illustrate that Jesus is their gift and he demands everything of them.

Baptism of the Lord, Sunday – 09^th January 2022 — Gospel: Luke 3,15-16.21-22

Unworthy Gift of Baptism

Jesus began his public ministry after his Baptism. Luke places this event at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, in order to state that all that He will do here after will be through the empowerment, blessing and approval of His Father. The opening of heaven signals that Jesus is the Messiah and that the fulfillment of Israel’s eschatological expectations is at hand. If the closing of heaven brought drought, the opening of heaven brings God’s blessings. By submitting to God’s grace and Holy Spirit, Jesus finds his identity and the affirmation from the Father. Jesus often made choices in his ministry that illuminated a path for his followers. His decision to be baptized points to the beauty and necessity of our own Baptism. The fact that the man baptizing him claimed to be unworthy reminds us that none of us, whether priest or laity, is worthy. As St.Paul says, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Rom 8,23). We need to have our faith in God, not in those, sometimes imperfect, messengers.

C.S.Lewis, in his book ‘The Screwtape Letters’, depicted a senior devil advising his protegee that the best time to distract a Christian is when he is at worship. He advised the junior devil to fill the mind of the Christian with judgmental thoughts about the priest and his fellow worshippers. Truly, the enemy of our souls would love to pull us away from the need for Baptism and the other sacraments by distracting us with negative thoughts about a particular priest or the church in general. But Jesus powerfully reminds us by his own Baptism to keep our eyes on God and his gifts of the sacraments. We see, John the Baptist, a privileged person to administer sacraments to the Lord, acknowledged his own unworthiness. The importance of this moment was reinforced by an audible voice from heaven proclaiming, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”