First Reading - Isaiah
40:1-5,9-11 ©
Alternative First Reading
- Isaiah 42:1-4,6-7 ©
Responsorial Psalm - Psalm
103(104):1-4,24-25,27-30 ©
Alternative Responsorial
Psalm - Psalm 28(29):1-4,9-10 ©
Second Reading - Titus
2:11-14,3:4-7 ©
Alternative Second Reading
- Acts 10:34-38 ©
Gospel Acclamation – Luke
3:16
The Gospel of the Day - Luke
3:15-16, 21-22 ©
(NJB)
Here
the words of the prophet:
There is great hope expressed in Isaiah, a
profound hope for the future wellness of all people, and our common destiny as
children of God, the creator of the universe.
Listen to them.
The prophet expresses certainty in regard to
the expectation of atonement, not just for the people of Israel, the children
of Judah, but for all people in all times and all places. He is certain of our
common destiny.
Be mindful.
The teaching of Isaiah serves as the principle
foundation for the early church, and the whole of Christian faith accordingly.
John the Baptist, stood in the tradition of Isaiah,
his was a voice crying out in the wilderness, calling the faithful to action,
telling us to prepare a way for the savior. John’s was the hope of Isaiah, the
expectation that the entire creation will bend to the will of God; every
valley, every mountain, from the cliffs to the plains, everything last thing
from te firmament to the heavens will yield to God.
Nothing and no-one will be excluded.
The faith of Isaiah, of John and of Jesus instructs
us to believe that despite all the power of God, the infinite might, we are on
better ground when we regard the creator as a figure like a shepherd feeding
the flock, like a mother ewe among her children.
Listen.
Isaiah also speaks of God as the punisher,
reminding the people of Judah of the punishment they have suffered for their
crimes.
Remember this, their crimes were crimes
against the people, their crimes took place in the world. They made enemies
among foreign powers and they suffered doubly on account of their wickedness
and vanity and broken promises, but they were not punished by God.
Their punishment, if you can call it that,
their suffering, the injustice and the justice which they encountered was the doing
of human beings. It was harsh, it was painful, it was cruel. Many of the people
were slaughtered, many more were taken into captivity, but this was not the
will of God. It was done by human beings, for human motivations.
God does not intervene in the affairs of the
world.
Isaiah came in the midst of all those
tragedies, as a voice crying out in the wilderness, as John came in later years,
and then Jesus, to remind the people that God is with them, and that in the end
all things will be resolved in love.
Be mindful.
God, the creator of the universe wants nothing
more from us than this; that we act justly, love mercy and walk humbly.
This is the way Jesus taught us, listen to
Isaiah, who made straight the way before him. Listen to John who led us to the
savior. The savior is the person who brings justice to the nations, you will
not hear him shouting for his vanity in the streets, you will see her cutting
people off from their potential.
The savior is a healer, and a teacher.
The savior teaches us that justice is expressed
through mercy, and that the law must be a servant to both.
This is what Jesus taught in his own day; he
taught us that we should love God with all our strength and all our heart and
all our mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
He preached on the Shema, he taught us that
all the teaching of Moses and the prophets was contained therein.
Be kind to the stranger, be of service to your
neighbor, love and forgive even your enemies. Do unto others as you would have them
do unto you, and do not do to them what you would not want done to you.
This is the whole of the law, this is the sum
of Isaiah’s teaching.
Keep to this law as a covenant, hold to it as
promise between yourself and God. Preach it until the blind see, and all those who
are captive to sin have been freed.
Know this.
God is the creator of the universe, the
eternal God is the first source and center of all things.
The infinite God engenders all potentialities,
and yet interferes with none of them.
The universe that God created, God created free
from coercion. God does not coerce creation. And yet the entirety of what is,
moves according to God’s eternal purpose.
The scope of this mystery is the content of our
faith.
It wise to believe in the God of creation.
God’s power is infinite and it undergirds everything that exists. God’s power
is present in all times and places. Truly God is everywhere, and God knows all
things. But it is not God’s voice we here in the wind above the waves. We do
not hear God in the thunder. God does not splinter trees. God is not active in the
affairs of human beings, rather God has made creations, and us in it free.
God is not a king.
Be mindful.
The salvific work that Jesus wrought did not
begin with his birth, or his death, it began in the mysterious place outside of
time, at the beginning of all things.
The Church teaches that our salvation begins with
the Word of God, the Logos, the
second person of the trinity in whom all things were made. The salvation of all
people, of all creation, that work began then, in the divine person.
It was built into the foundation of all that
is. God is the foundation of al that is.
Listen to the teaching of the apostle.
Living a good and restrained life does not
purchase salvation, we do not earn it, and no one earned it for us.
Living a good and restrained life, a life of
justice and mercy, a life of love and humility, is to live a life that
manifests the reality of God’s salvific will, the will of God that is already
present in us.
Those qualities, those spiritual
characteristics are like flags we raise in our own time and place, we raise
them to display them for all to see. We raise them to show others the beauty
and peace of the kingdom of God, the expectation of it which we hold in faith
while we sojourn here on Earth.
Remember this:
God, the creator of the universe; the eternal
and infinite God knows us and loves us.
God is the savior of all people, providing for
it from the moment we come into being.
Salvation is wellbeing, both in this world and
the next. The reception of it does not require rituals or rites, or a magical mechanism
of justification.
It is given, and it is free.
There are no secret codes that grant us access
to heaven.
We are saved in the next world because God
wills it.
We are saved in this world through our faith
in its promise, by a simple trust in God, expressed as hope, manifested as love
in our relationships with our fellow human beings.
I say this with confidence, as imperfect a
messenger as I am.
Listen:
We must always bear in mind that God does not
intervene in creation, or the free choices of human beings.
God does not intervene anywhere.
God did not so much anoint Jesus, as did Jesus
accept the mantle of sonship to God, and the full burden that this entailed,
even to the extent that he went to his death and suffered on the cross in
fidelity to his mission.
Jesus was free to reject the ministry that was
before him, but he did not. He was faithful to the end. Setting an example to
us all.
Few people will be called to serve in the
capacity that Jesus served; to be tortured and executed for doing what is right
and good; for healing the sick and feeding the hungry, for giving hope to the
hopeless, for protecting the widow and the orphan.
Few of us have the capacity to love justice so
much that they could humbly endure what Jesus endured, and that is why we call
him the Christ.
Follow Jesus.
Do good.
Love justice.
Be merciful; be a source of healing in the
world.
This is the way of Christ, do the best you
can, not for the sake of your salvation, God has that in hand. Do good for your
sisters and brothers, for all women and men.
Let
us reflect on what these teachings mean, as they pertain to the Gospel reading
for today.
In
the calendar of observances today is a feast day. It is the Feast of the
Baptism of Jesus.
We
have just concluded our celebration of his coming and his birth. Now we celebrate
the beginning of his public ministry; the journey that led to his death on
Golgotha.
In
Judea, and in the broader Palestinian world the average person felt displaced.
On
the one hand they were a client state of Rome, and on the other hand they were
subject to the corruption of their own royal dynasty; the Herodians.
The
average person had no representation at the Temple in Jerusalem, because of the
laws of ritual purity they could not even approach the temple grounds, which both
the spiritual and economic center of their world.
The
average person ardently hoped for and expected deliverance. Their messianic
faith focused the attention of the people forward, to the “anointed one,” the,
the messiah, in Greek the Kyrios, in
English the Christ.
They
hoped for deliverance from both the political corruption of the Romans and the
Herodians, as well as the sectarian corruption at the temple, the corruption of
the temple scribes, the Sadducees and the Pharisees (returning from the
diaspora).
In
the person of John the Baptist the people saw a figure who might represent part
of this deliverance. He was stern and outspoken, uncompromising and mysterious.
He was an aesthetic, and while he preached repentance, he promised the reality
of God’s love; he pointed to its presence in the lives of the baptized, the
reality of God’s forgiveness, present to the people without intermediary, apart
from the cult of sacrifice.
This
narrative tells us that John eschewed the title and office that some of the
people might have thrust on him. It tells us that John himself had the same
hopes and expectations as the common man or woman, but that John also had the
knowledge of who the Christ was.
He
knew Jesus of Nazareth, and he knew he was coming. When John says; “I am not
fit to undo the strap of his sandals.” John is saying that compared to Jesus,
he is lower than the lowest servant, and he means it in his heart.
John
accepts the role of a servant, as jesus did and as Jesus taught.
Had
John lived, the history of Christianity would have been very different, but
John was arrested and killed shortly after he baptized Jesus.
The
disciples of Jesus, and the Gospel writers who followed them would spend the
next one hundred and fifty years writing their narratives and telling their
stories in a manner intended to keep the followers of John in their movement.
This
required a great deal of effort. This effort served to shape the Christian
story in a way which ultimately undermined the significance and uniqueness of
the ministry of Christ.
It
perpetuated questions like:
“Who
is greater John or Jesus?”
And
it prompted the followers of Jesus, long after his death to amplify that
narrative, making it so that Jesus did not merely receive his baptism from
John, but the heavens broke open, and the Holy Spirit descended in the form of
a dove, and a voice came out of nowhere proclaiming that Jesus was the favored
and beloved Son of God.
Such
myths, while they are fantastic and entertaining, represent a departure from
the tradition that John and Jesus followed, the tradition of Isaiah, and the
prophets who sought justice for the people.
The
entirety of Luke’s narrative is the interpolation of myth into the ordinary
story of the man, Jesus of Nazareth. It introduced categories of ownership and
inheritance, and of dominion, which, it may be argued, that Jesus himself did not
speak to or concern himself with, even though his followers, even those closest
to him were very much concerned with it.
The
Christian story is best told without artifice, without the fabrication of myth,
and without resorting to fables, and magic. It is a story of love and service,
of hope and healing, and the celebration of our common humanity.
The
good news eclipses the differences between the sexes, it eclipses tribalism,
sectarianism, and nationalism. In doing so it shows us the only path to peace,
and justice, the path of the faithful, one we are called to make straight and
follow.
First Reading - Isaiah
40:1-5,9-11 ©
The glory of the Lord
shall be revealed and all mankind shall see it
‘Console
my people, console them’ says your God.
‘Speak
to the heart of Jerusalem and call to her that her time of service is ended, that
her sin is atoned for, that she has received from the hand of the Lord double
punishment for all her crimes.’
A
voice cries, ‘Prepare in the wilderness a way for the Lord.
Make
a straight highway for our God across the desert.
Let
every valley be filled in, every mountain and hill be laid low.
Let
every cliff become a plain, and the ridges a valley; then the glory of the Lord
shall be revealed and all mankind shall see it; for the mouth of the Lord has
spoken.’
Go
up on a high mountain, joyful messenger to Zion.
Shout
with a loud voice, joyful messenger to Jerusalem.
Shout
without fear, say to the towns of Judah, ‘Here is your God.’
Here
is the Lord coming with power, his arm subduing all things to him.
The
prize of his victory is with him, his trophies all go before him.
He
is like a shepherd feeding his flock, gathering lambs in his arms, holding them
against his breast and leading to their rest the mother ewes.
Alternative First Reading
- Isaiah 42:1-4,6-7 ©
Here is my servant, in
whom my soul delights
Thus
says the Lord:
Here
is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights.
I
have endowed him with my spirit that he may bring true justice to the nations.
He
does not cry out or shout aloud, or make his voice heard in the streets.
He
does not break the crushed reed, nor quench the wavering flame.
Faithfully
he brings true justice; he will neither waver, nor be crushed until true
justice is established on earth, for the islands are awaiting his law.
I,
the Lord, have called you to serve the cause of right; I have taken you by the
hand and formed you; I have appointed you as covenant of the people and light
of the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to free captives from prison, and
those who live in darkness from the dungeon.
Responsorial Psalm - Psalm
103(104):1-4,24-25,27-30 ©
Bless the Lord, my soul!
Lord God, how great you are.
Lord
God, how great you are,
clothed in majesty and glory,
wrapped
in light as in a robe!
You stretch out the heavens like a tent.
Bless the Lord, my soul!
Lord God, how great you are.
Above
the rains you build your dwelling.
You
make the clouds your chariot,
you walk on the wings of the wind,
you
make the winds your messengers
and flashing fire your servant.
Bless the Lord, my soul!
Lord God, how great you are.
How
many are your works, O Lord!
In wisdom you have made them all.
The earth is full of your riches.
There
is the sea, vast and wide,
with its moving swarms past counting,
living things great and small.
Bless the Lord, my soul!
Lord God, how great you are.
All
of these look to you
to give them their food in due season.
You
give it, they gather it up:
you open your hand, they have their fill.
Bless the Lord, my soul!
Lord God, how great you are.
You
hide your face, they are dismayed;
you take back your spirit, they die.
You
send forth your spirit, they are created;
and you renew the face of the earth.
Bless the Lord, my soul!
Lord God, how great you are.
Alternative Responsorial Psalm
- Psalm 28(29):1-4,9-10 ©
The Lord will bless his
people with peace.
O
give the Lord, you sons of God,
give the Lord glory and power;
give
the Lord the glory of his name.
Adore the Lord in his holy court.
The Lord will bless his
people with peace.
The
Lord’s voice resounding on the waters,
the Lord on the immensity of waters;
the
voice of the Lord, full of power,
the voice of the Lord, full of splendour.
The Lord will bless his
people with peace.
The
God of glory thunders.
In his temple they all cry: ‘Glory!’
The
Lord sat enthroned over the flood;
the Lord sits as king for ever.
The Lord will bless his
people with peace.
Second Reading - Titus
2:11-14,3:4-7 ©
He Saved Us by Means of
the Cleansing Water of Rebirth
God’s
grace has been revealed, and it has made salvation possible for the whole human
race and taught us that what we have to do is to give up everything that does
not lead to God, and all our worldly ambitions; we must be self-restrained and
live good and religious lives here in this present world, while we are waiting
in hope for the blessing which will come with the Appearing of the glory of our
great God and saviour Christ Jesus. He sacrificed himself for us in order to
set us free from all wickedness and to purify a people so that it could be his
very own and would have no ambition except to do good.
But
when the kindness and love of God our saviour for mankind were revealed, it was
not because he was concerned with any righteous actions we might have done
ourselves; it was for no reason except his own compassion that he saved us, by
means of the cleansing water of rebirth and by renewing us with the Holy Spirit
which he has so generously poured over us through Jesus Christ our saviour. He
did this so that we should be justified by his grace, to become heirs looking
forward to inheriting eternal life.
Alternative Second Reading
- Acts 10:34-38 ©
God Had Anointed Jesus
with the Holy Spirit
Peter
addressed Cornelius and his household: ‘The truth I have now come to realise’
he said ‘is that God does not have favourites, but that anybody of any nationality
who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him.
‘It
is true, God sent his word to the people of Israel, and it was to them that the
good news of peace was brought by Jesus Christ – but Jesus Christ is Lord of
all men. You must have heard about the recent happenings in Judaea; about Jesus
of Nazareth and how he began in Galilee, after John had been preaching baptism.
God had anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and because God was
with him, Jesus went about doing good and curing all who had fallen into the
power of the devil.’
Gospel Acclamation – Luke
3:16
Alleluia, alleluia!
Someone
is coming, said John, someone greater than I.
He
will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
Alleluia!
Gospel Reading - Luke
3:15-16,21-22 ©
'Someone is coming who
will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire'
A
feeling of expectancy had grown among the people, who were beginning to think
that John might be the Christ, so John declared before them all, ‘I baptise you
with water, but someone is coming, someone who is more powerful than I am, and
I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandals; he will baptise you with the
Holy Spirit and fire. Now when all the people had been baptised and while Jesus
after his own baptism was at prayer, heaven opened and the Holy Spirit
descended on him in bodily shape, like a dove. And a voice came from heaven,
‘You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you.’
The Third Sunday of
Christmas
Feast
of the Baptism of Jesus
