What Was Barren Will Be Restored Wonderfully

Saturday of 13th week in course

For the last few days we have been hearing the prophecies of the minor prophet Amos, who came from the kingdom of Judah–David’s kingdom–to the large but heretical kingdom of Israel. This prophetic vision, like the others we have heard, tells Israel that their sins of idolatry and oppression of the poor are going to bring catastrophe on good and bad alike. He has spent some time telling his listeners that the trouble they have brought on themselves will be like God unmaking creation.

But that is not all. Restoration of the good order of creation will come, but not from the northern tribes. Instead, God will raise up the house of David, Jerusalem and its temple that the northerners had abandoned. Then what has been left barren will be planted and yield such excellent harvests that it will seem like vines and grain would grow so fast that the seed-sowing would end and the harvest would begin immediately. The people would thrive because they would cooperate with God and give Him right worship and right conduct to the poor. This is clearly an early reference to the kingdom of justice and love Jesus would establish after His Resurrection and the Descent of the Holy Spirit.

The poet who wrote psalm 85 uses language that says similar good things about how wonderful the earth will be when God’s people follow His will. Steadfast love and faithfulness, which have disappeared from Israel, will return and embrace, have permanence. Righteousness and peace will go hand in hand. Why will that happen? Because when God’s Spirit fills His people, all will cooperate with His divine plan.

The appearance of Jesus in Galilee during the first century took the Jewish people by surprise. We see in today’s Gospel a little of the consternation that took hold of the disciples of John the Baptist–who was so influential that some of them considered him to be the Messiah even though he told them he was not. Why, they asked Jesus, do we and the Pharisees fast, but you and your disciples do not? The Baptist’s people took a different path from the hardline legalists among the scribes and Pharisees, but even so, both groups kept fasting. One of the ways Jesus made His way unique was to avoid fasting during His ministry time. After His death and Resurrection, of course, He never fasted, but the disciples, the Christians, did.

His reason points to the whole goal of our following Christ. His kingdom, shown vividly in the book of Revelation, is like an eternal liturgy, or wedding banquet. Christ is the Bridegroom and the Church is His Bride. Who cowers in a corner at a wedding reception and avoids the food and drink? Nobody in the friends and family. Jesus continually threatens those bound up in habits that do not advance Christ’s kingdom. Yes, we fast here on earth, like on every Friday to remember His suffering and death, but when we are joined forever to the Trinity in heaven, when we see the Face of the Son forever, everybody will celebrate that eternal union.