Preview Mode Links will not work in preview mode

Jan 23, 2021

We've just begun a few weeks now of Ordinary Time and you can surely tell by the readings on this Saturday of the 2nd week: the Letter to the Hebrews is always trying to convert Hebrew ways of thinking to the acceptance of Christian revelation, for example, in this passage that Jesus' Blood shed in his Passion and Death is way more efficacious than the former multiple animal sacrifices needed to make humanity right with God.
" . . . how much more will the Blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God." (Hebrews 9:14)
It's a bit of a stretch for us gentiles to be so deeply impressed by that comparison, but we ARE extremely grateful for the God-Man's sacrifice on our behalf, reconciling us with the Godhead and literally showing us, in person, how to live as the beloved community of God. But such enlightenment does not always come easily to people. Even Jesus' own relatives were reluctant to appreciate his magnetic appeal to people in need of healing, physical or otherwise. The brief passage from Mark says:
" . . . they set out to seize him, for they said, 'He is out of his mind.' ” (Mark 3:21)
It's a huge stretch for our 21st century christian minds to imagine anyone calling Christ crazy---but it is there in the bible. You know, movies about Christ have programmed us to see him as this serene man-in-charge, but maybe he was more like the prophets of our own day who often seem eccentric in their identification with a cause---in Jesus' case, the cause of right living. Help us, O God, not to cave, when our Christian practices are questioned or ridiculed by others, even perhaps by relatives. Help us keep our eyes on Jesus' perfect example of God's kind of community. Help us, in fact, to bring it about within the circles of our lives. Amen. Let it be.