Saturday of the First Week of the Year 2023
I don’t know if our story from the Gospel of Luke is like the first time in history somebody used like the word “like” in a way that’s become emblematic of the early 21st century in the US, but here it is: “Jesus was like thirty-ish, being the son–like--they thought–of Joseph.” In truth, Jesus was the Son of God, and son of Mary. We prefer saying that He was the step-son of His guardian, Joseph. Joseph was the legal husband of Mary, but she was and continued to be a virgin. As the mother of the Messiah, who would be King of Israel like David, she could not legally have consummated her marriage to Joseph. She was Queen Mother of Christ. There are all kinds of references in the OT that could be cited. At any rate, Jesus was of the line of David, as Matthew’s Gospel tells us, but more fundamentally, He was a real human being, a real man, ultimately the offspring of Adam and Eve.
Why is that important? Even back in the first century, maybe thirty or forty years after Jesus’s Resurrection when St. Luke was penning this account, there were unbelievers who taught that Jesus was divine, but just appeared to be human, and others who taught that Jesus was just a man, with superhuman powers. There are still folks like that today, and some of them have huge Facebook (R) followings. Our weak minds just can’t wrap themselves around the full truth–Jesus Christ was truly God and truly man, and that’s why His death and Resurrection were able to save us from sin and death.
By the time St. John was writing his letters a few years later, there were lots of heretics running around teaching that Jesus was not really a human being. So John, battling this gnostic cancer in his churches, wrote that he actually touched Jesus in the flesh. He didn’t just come in water, that is only sacramentally, but in water and blood animated by the Holy Spirit who generated His humanity in the womb of Mary. That is the substance of the testimony of God the Father. As you read John’s first letter, remember the battle he was waging, and give thanks for the testimony that is in him and in you, that you share with anyone who is open to the Truth.
The psalm-writer was a Levite in the Temple, and this psalm was used there. Back when originally sung, the singers thought of the bars to the city gates, or the Temple gates, which would keep out invaders. The borders being sung about were the physical borders of the kingdom protected by their armies and militias. But the Word of the Lord the psalm–and we–celebrate is everlasting, a Word for all ages. The True Word is the Son of God, and He is present here, whenever two or three pray in His Name. All of us who are baptized into Jesus Christ make up the nation celebrated in each of the psalms. Yes, we yearn for physical safety from the bad guys, but if we stand for Christ, there’s a chance that we will pay for our faith with our lives. Our moral and spiritual safety is way more important, because everyone will die, but only those who hear the Law of Christ and keep it, who have active lives of faith, hope and charity, will inherit a life of eternal joy and peace in the embrace of the Blessed Trinity. That conviction is true peace in the borders of our hearts and families.
