EASTER SUNDAY (C)

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PALM SUNDAY / PASSION SUNDAY

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5th SUNDAY OF LENT (C)

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NOTE FROM THE NEW AMERICAN BIBLE:

[7:53–8:11] The story of the woman caught in adultery is a later insertion here, missing from all early Greek manuscripts.

A Western text-type insertion, attested mainly in Old Latin translations, it is found in different places in different manuscripts: here, or after Jn 7:36 or at the end of this gospel, or after Lk 21:38, or at the end of that gospel.

There are many non-Johannine features in the language, and there are also many doubtful readings within the passage. The style and motifs are similar to those of Luke, and it fits better with the general situation at the end of Lk 21: but it was probably inserted here because of the allusion to Jer 17:13 (cf. note on Jn 8:6) and the statement, “I do not judge anyone,” in Jn 8:15.

The Catholic Church accepts this passage as canonical scripture.

4th SUNDAY OF LENT (C)

Then let us celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.’

Lk 15: 1-3. 11-32

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FROM G.B. CAIRD

This story is the best known and best loved of all the parables of Jesus, justly treasured for its exquisite literary grace and penetrating delineation of character as well as for its assurance of a divine mercy surpassing all expectation.

But the traditional title - 'The Prodigal Son' - does less than justice to the purpose of the parable, as the opening sentence makes clear. 'There was a man who had two sons', and he lost them both, one in a foreign country, the other behind a barricade of self-righteousness. The elder contrived, without leaving home, to be as far away from his father as ever his brother was in the heathen pigsty.

Both brothers were selfish, though in totally different ways. The selfishness of the younger brother was a reckless love of life. He asked for his patrimony because he wanted to savour to the full the manifold delights the world could offer, not foreseeing that truant independence would lead to penury and ignoble serfdom. The selfishness of the older brother was less obvious and less vulnerable. He asked for nothing, desired nothing, enjoyed nothing. He devoted himself dutifully to his father's service, never disobeying a command of his father, and thought, no doubt, that he was the model of unselfishness; yet he himself was the centre of his every thought, so that he was incapable of entering sympathetically into his father's joys and sorrows.

It was common practice for a man, during his lifetime, to make over his property to his heirs by deed of gift, retaining the life rent for himself The younger son persuaded his father to do this, but also to give him immediate control of the inheritance which, in the ordinary course of events, would have come to him at his father's death. This explains why, at a later stage in the story, the father could say to the other son, 'all that is mine is yours', though he himself was still master of the family farm.

We are not told in detail how the younger son squandered his fortune. His brother, not trying to be just, let alone charitable, chose to believe that he had added profligacy to extravagance, but he had no more evidence for the harlots than his imagination and bad temper could supply.

One way or another, however, the prodigal was reduced to extremity: to a Jew no fate could be more degrading than to feed pigs for a Gentile master. Adversity brought him to his senses, calling up memories of comfort and security, once heedlessly enjoyed and now forfeited, compelling him to admit to himself that he had been a fool, steeling him to make a similar admission to his father.

Yet even at this stage he knew too little of his father to think in terms of forgiveness and restoration. It took the impetuous munificence of his father's welcome, interrupting his carefully rehearsed confession and blotting out the recollection of disgrace, to make him realize, as he had never realized before, what it meant to be his father's son; 'they began to make merry', and the prodigal began to discover at home what he had sought in vain among the counterfeit pleasures of the far country.

The elder son displays an unattractive facet of his personality with every word he speaks. When he hears the merriment, his impulse is not to join in but to ask for an explanation. The news of his brother's return sets him thinking of his own rights and deserts, jealously supposing himself to be wronged because his brother is treated with more than justice.

When his father pleads with him, he interrupts with a harsh protest, which contains perhaps more truth than he intended - 'Look how many years I have slaved for you'; working for his father has been an unrewarding servitude, and the obedience he is so proud of has been slavish and mercenary, never filial. He disowns his brother, calling him 'this son of yours', and putting the worst possible construction on his conduct.

The father refuses to be forced into taking sides with the one brother against the other; with all their shortcomings he loves them both and has never ceased to regard them as sons, though each in his own way has tried to contract out of his place in the family. He administers the gentlest of rebukes: his dear son who has remained with him all along should have understood him well enough to share his joy over 'this your brother'.

The parable leaves us with an unanswered question: did the elder son persist in his jealous rage? Or did he follow the lead of his brother, admit that he had made a fool of himself, and join the festivities? The question was left unanswered by Jesus because it was one which his listeners had to answer for themselves.

The parable was told not to offer a generous pardon to the nation's prodigals, but to entreat the respectable Jews to rejoice with God over the restoration of sinners, and to warn them that, until they learnt to do this, they would remain estranged from their heavenly father and pitifully ignorant of his true character.

3RD SUNDAY OF LENT (C)

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2ND SUNDAY OF LENT (C)

And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus 

Lk 9:28b-36

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BY G B. CAIRD

According to Mark it was in the neighborhood of Caesarea Philippi that Peter declared Jesus to be Messiah. Immediately to the north of Caesarea lay Mount Hermon, and it is likely that this was the mountain to which Jesus resorted a week later with three of his friends. The mention of a precise interval by Mark and Luke indicates that in their opinion the two events were intimately related.

For the three witnesses their experience on the mountain provided an impressive confirmation of the new teaching they had received at Caesarea. There Jesus, in response to Peter's confession, had made a threefold disclosure: that the Messiah must suffer, that his disciples must be prepared to share his suffering, and that his suffering and theirs must be seen against a background of ultimate and certain glory. Now they have a prevision of the glory to come and hear a voice from heaven bidding them heed the words of God's Son.

The form of the words spoken from heaven shows that the transfiguration of Jesus is to be linked also with his baptism. Then Jesus had accepted God's commission to be both Messiah and Servant of the Lord, and the voice from heaven had come to him to confirm him in the course he had chosen. Now he has begun to reveal to his disciples the secret of his calling, and the same voice comes to them to confirm his instruction.

But the transfiguration cannot be understood simply as a stage in the education of the disciples; it must also have been as a crisis in the religious life of Jesus. Luke draws our attention to this point in his usual manner. Jesus, he tells us, was praying; and his comment is borne out by the researches of Evelyn Underhill and others, who have shown that the intense devotions of saint and mystic are often accompanied by physical transformation and luminous glow. Many scholars, past and present, have treated the transfiguration story with suspicion, regarding it either as a misplaced resurrection story or as a legendary product of later Christian piety. But the account may be accepted as literal truth, if we suppose that Jesus underwent an experience so profound that his companions, in tire susceptible state between sleep and waking, were drawn into it.

The very fact that Jesus took with him the three men who were later to accompany him into Gethsemane suggests that, now as then, he expected some trial of his spiritual stamina in which he would be glad of their companionship. Luke gives us a clue to the nature of the trial when he tells us that Moses and Elijah appeared and, spoke of his departure which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem. This was not the first time, according to Luke, that Jesus had contemplated the prospect of death in the service of God. From the outset he had accepted the prophecy of the suffering Servant of the Lord as the blue-print of his ministry. But it is one thing to believe that obedience to God's decree will lead ultimately to rejection and death; it is quite another thing to embrace rejection and death as immediate, human possibilities.

The Greek word which Luke uses for death is an unusual one - exodos; and it is clear that he used it because of its Old Testament associations with divine deliverance. At Jerusalem Jesus was to accomplish the New Exodus, leading God's people from a greater bondage than that of Egypt into the promised land of the kingdom. Like Moses of old, he was now standing on the brink of a great sea, the ocean of iniquity through which he must pass and in which he must accornplish another baptism (12:50).

He has always obeyed the Father, but the road he has travelled hitherto has been well marked by the feet of prophets and forerunners, like Moses and Elijah. Now God is about to lead him into a path never before trodden by human foot, a path which will lead him to Gethsemane and Calvary. Henceforth, as pioneer of our salvation (Heb. 2:10, 12:2), he must journey alone, and not even Moses and Elijah can bear him company. Others, indeed, like John the Baptist, have suffered and died in God's service, but the death that awaits this man is more than martyrdom.

Peter's proposal to build three booths, or tabernacles, was a plausible one, though Mark and Luke, from their vantage point of superior knowledge, judged it to be ill-considered. He saw three men, each one a manifestation of the divine glory, and he wanted to capture the fleeting and stupendous moment by providing for each one a tabernacle such as Israel had built in the wilderness to enshrine the glory of the Lord.

Perhaps it confirmed his faith in Jesus to see him in such company. For Moses had spoken with God as a man speaks with his friend, so that his face shone as he received the law at God's hand, and, like Elijah, he had stood alone as the champion of God's people. Both men had made such an impression on their fellows that they were believed to have been translated bodily to heaven, and both were regarded as forerunners of the kingdom.

What Peter did not realize was that Moses and Elijah belonged, with John the Baptist, to the old order that was passing away, and that a moment later he would see them vanish, leaving Jesus alone, and hear a voice say, 'This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!' (cf. Deut. 18:15). There was no need for three tabernacles. The divine glory, imperfectly and partially revealed under the old dispensation, was now being gathered up in the sole person of this Jesus who had set his face to go to Jerusalem. He stood alone, and the cloud of the divine presence overshadowed him and his disciples.

1ST SUNDAY OF LENT (C)

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5TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (C)

“Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing,

but at your command I will lower the nets.”

Lk 5:1-11

FROM G. B. CAIRD

The crowds pressed upon Jesus because of his words of authority and his deeds of power. But there were some upon whom he made a deeper and more permanent impression, who found in him something transcendent, numinous, utterly compelling.

The first to experience this humbling and exhilarating awe was Simon. Sitting in his boat on the Lake of Gennesaret (elsewhere called the Sea of Galilee or the Sea of Tiberias), he listened to the teaching of Jesus and it won him heart and soul. Common sense, reason, and fisherman's lore bade him go home to bed; but Jesus said, 'Let down your nets', and he obeyed.

Whether Luke supposed the amazing catch of fish to involve control over nature or supernatural insight, who can say? The point of his story is Jesus' miraculous influence with dispirited men, wearied by a night of profitless toil. These were the men he needed as his disciples, men disciplined by labor and hardship, but with the impetuous loyalty to say, 'If you give the order, I will do it.'

On Simon at least the impact he made was a profoundly moral one, resulting in a sense of sin. It was not the miracle that brought him to his knees but the grandeur of sheer goodness.

Miraculous catch of fish in Luke and in John

This incident is in some respects similar to the one recorded in John 21, and it has been conjectured that the two accounts are variants of a single story, which came to Luke without any indication of its original setting.

The differences, however, are far more striking than the similarities. This is part of the very complex problem of the relation between the third and fourth Gospels. One possibility is that two independent stories have in the course of oral transmission interacted on one another, as in the case of the two stories of the anointing of Jesus (Luke 7:36-38; Mark 14:3-9; John 12:1-8).

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4TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (C)

They rose up, drove him out of the town,and led him to the brow of the hill to hurl him down headlong.

Lk 4:21-30

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FROM G. B. CAIRD

Jesus' announcement that the messianic age had dawned was received at first with rapt attention and excited comment, but when the people began to realize that he had incidentally laid claim to central position for himself in the inauguration of God's reign admiration turned first to doubt, then to hostility.

Their earthbound eyes saw in him only the son of Joseph, and it did not occur to them that he might also be Son of God. Jesus saw that behind their scepticism lay injured pride. 'Physician, heal yourself' was a popular proverb, akin to 'Charity begins at home'; but it had an apt reference to the present situation. The people of Nazareth felt that, if the son of Joseph had anything to offer, his own home town should have had the first benefit of it. But those who stand upon their rights and insist on preferential treatment are not likely to appreciate one who offers the chance to spend and be spent in the service of others and of the Gospel which leaves no room for privilege.

The stories of Elijah and Elisha should, indeed, have taught them that with God charity begins wherever there is found human need to call it forth and faith to receive it, irrespective of class or race. In fact, however, the suggestion that Gentiles could be admitted to God's kingdom produced an outburst of nationalist fervor which would have ended in the death of Jesus had the crowd not been overawed by the sheer majesty of his commanding presence.

3rd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” 

Lk 1:1-4; 4:14-21

G. B. CAIRD

Mark records the rejection of Jesus by the people of Nazareth almost at the end of the first year of his ministry (Mark 6:1-6). Luke's account is probably an independent version of the same incident (vv. 22b and 24 may have been added from Mark), and implies a previous ministry of some duration in Capernaum. Nevertheless he places the incident at the beginning of his story of the Galilean ministry, because it announces the pattern which the ministry is to follow, and for this reason he has condensed into a brief compass events which may have taken longer to develop.

Having repudiated in his temptations the various false conceptions of Messiahship current among the Jews, Jesus publishes his commission to bring in God's year of Jubilee. It is greeted first with enthusiasm and then with doubt, and finally threatened with mob violence when he hints at the inclusion of the Gentiles within God's purpose of grace. The rest of the Gospel is simply the working out of this program.

Jesus claims that the scripture has been fulfilled in their hearin. They are listening to the promised preaching, the good news of which the prophet spoke. He has not merely read the scripture: as King' messenger he has turned it into a royal proclamation of amnesty and release. He is the Servant of the Lord, sent to announce to Israel that “'Your God reigns” (Is. 5:27); and that this kingly power of God is t be exercised in pardon, healing, and liberation. Beyond all this the reader of the Gospel is expected to recognize echoes of Jesus’ baptism experience, which would be missed by the Nazareth congregation.

Jesus' announcement that the messianic age had dawned was received at first with rapt attention and excited comment, but when the people began to realize that he had incidentally laid claim to central position for himself in the inauguration of God's reign admiration turned first to doubt, then to hostility.

FEAST OF THE STO. NINO

The Gospel as the same as that of the Holy Family.

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Baptism of the Lord

“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

Lk 3:15-16, 21-22

G. B. CAIRD

John was a great man. But his greatest contribution to the kingdom of God was one of which he himself was quite unconscious: he excited to open flame the hidden fires in the soul of Jesus of Nazareth. The stories of the baptism and temptations must have been told to the disciples by Jesus himself. The pious ingenuity of the early Church could no more have created these stories than the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. On this subject Luke has two pertinent editorial comments. Jesus was praying: the rending heaven, the descent of the dove, the voice are all part of a religious experience which belonged to Jesus' life of private converse with God. But the Spirit descended in bodily form, i.e. not in hallucination or fantasy, but in real event, spiritual and private, but nonetheless objective.

Jesus also was baptized. Why? To be baptized was to ask God's forgiveness, and it is the uniform witness of the New Testament that Jesus had no sins of his own to confess (Acts 3:14, 2 Cor. 5:21, 1 Pt. 1:9, Heb. 7:26, John 8:46). In his own teaching there is no suggestion that he ever experienced the alienation from God which is the most baleful consequence of sin. Yet his scathing attacks on empty formalism forbid us to believe that he would have undergone baptism unless the ceremony had held for him, as for others, a profound significance. The story of his baptism, brief as it is, gives us Jesus' own answer to this question.

The voice from heaven addressed Jesus in a composite quotation from scripture (Ps. 27, Isa. 42:1). Psalm 2 proclaims the accession of the anointed king, who is to rule the nations with a rod of iron. Isa. 42:1-6 is the first of a series of prophecies about the Servant of the Lord, who has been chosen to carry true religion to the Gentiles and who, in achieving this mission, must suffer indignity, rejection, and death.

Thus the words which he heard must have meant to Jesus that he was being designated to both these offices, “anointed…with the Holy Spirit and with power (Acts 10:37; cf. Luke 4:18), sent out to establish the reign of God, not with the iron scepter but with patient and self-forgetful service. Remembering Luke's story of the boy Jesus, we cannot suppose that all this now flashed upon him as a new and startling revelation, that up to this moment it had never occurred to him that God had singled him out for a special vocation. The baptismal experience represented the end of a long development, of deepening appreciation of the divine fatherhood and his own filial responsibility, of growing insight into his mission and the world's need, of meditation on the meaning of the scriptures and their application to himself

Jesus went to be baptized, then, not for private reasons, but as a man with a public calling. John had summoned all Israel to repentance, and with Israel Jesus too must go. He dwelt in the midst of a people with unclean lips and could not separate himself from them. Rather he must be fully identified with them in their movement towards God. If he was to lead them into God's kingdom, he himself must enter it by the only door open to them. He must be their representative before he could be their king. He must be numbered with the transgressors before he could see the fruit of the travail of his soul (Isa. 53:11-12). The words from heaven were more than a: divine appointment: they were the divine approval of the course to which Jesus had committed himself in accepting baptism. To him who had chosen to identify himself with his people in their need and their expectation the ratifying voice declared, “Yes! That is what it means to be my Son, to be my Anointed One, to be my Servant.”

Epiphany

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FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY

Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?

Lk 2:41-52

G. B. CAIRD

To illustrate the thirty years of growth which led to the climax of his baptism, Luke records but one incident.

At the age of twelve a Jewish boy became bar mitzvah, a son of the Law, able to accept for himself the responsibilities and obligations to which his parents had committed him by the rite of circumcision. For Jesus this occasion was celebrated by a family visit to Jerusalem for the Passover. When the seven-day festival was over, his parents started for home along with a caravan of other Galilean pilgrims, not realizing that Jesus was left behind.

The great city had laid its charm upon him, and he was taking advantage of his opportunities to learn from the rabbis in the temple courts, so utterly engrossed in the exciting new world of intellectual adventure as to be oblivious to the consternation he was causing.

To Mary's mild rebuke he replied in words of profound significance for our understanding of his later career. His parents should have known where to look for him - in his Father's house. This description of the temple betokens that the doctrine of the divine fatherhood, long a tenet of Israel's faith, had become for him an intimate personal experience.

Besides becoming a bar mitzvah he had become intensely aware of being Son of God, and henceforth he was to live his life not merely under the Law but under the higher authority of his filial consciousness.

Luke's Gospel is more than the story of what Jesus did and taught: it is also the story of what Jesus experienced. He was, as the Epistle to the Hebrews has it, 'the pioneer of our salvation', blazing a new trail for others to follow. It was his calling to explore to the uttermost what it means to call God 'Father'.

4th SUNDAY OF ADVENT (C)

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb.

Lk 1: 39-45

From G. B. CAIRD

When Elizabeth and Mary met, the unborn herald leaped for joy to greet his unborn Lord. We cannot but remember that in later life John was by no means certain that Jesus was 'the Coming One' whose way he had been sent to prepare (7:18). This is idealized history, in which Luke is describing not the actual historical relationship between the two men but the prenatal relationship which existed in the predestining purpose of God.

We must exercise a similar .caution with regard to the Magnificat of Mary. Our inclination is to agree with Elizabeth and call Mary the most blessed among women. But another woman who called Mary blessed met with a rebuke from Jesus (11:27-28), which is also a rebuke to all sentimentality. Mary was not blessed because of any special understanding that she had for the mission of her son; for she and the rest of her family understood him as little as John did (2:50; cf.  Mark 3:21. 31-35). Her blessedness consisted simply in this, that, having been chosen for special service and having received an amazing promise, she believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.

3rd SUNDAY OF ADVENT (C)

The crowds asked John the Baptist, "What should we do?"

Lk 3:10-18

From G. B. CAIRD

The religious leaders ignored John (7:30), but for others, including the most unlikely people, his preaching had an irresistible fascination. To each class he spelled out in simple terms the meaning of repentance. 

• To ordinary, selfish folk, blind to the needs of others because of their preoccupation with security, 
• to tax collectors whose trade was a form of licensed extortion, 
• to soldiers accustomed to line their pockets by intimidation and blackmail, he gave the same injunction: 

renounce your besetting sin. 

When we compare such teaching with the profundity of the teaching of Jesus, we can see that John's passionate urgency was not matched by any penetrating analysis of man's moral problem. There were depths which John, for all his heroic stature, was unqualified to explore.

At least John was aware of his own limitations. His task was to create an immense tide of messianic expectation, and then to make way for the Messiah. His baptism with water was but a prelude to another baptism. It is, however, open to question whether John regarded this other baptism as a promise or a threat. According to Mark, the coming baptism was to be with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8); and, if this is what John had in mind, he was echoing the ancient prophecy that on his restored people God would bestow the gift of the Spirit (Ezek. 3:27, Isa. 44:3, Joel 2:28).

According to Q, the source Luke is here following, the baptism was to be with the Holy Spirit and with fire; and this may be taken either as a hendiadys - 'with the sacred flame of the Spirit' - or as a description of a dual baptism, the gracious gift for the penitent and the rigors of retribution for the obdurate. 

A third possibility is that what John really predicted was a baptism of fire (i.e. judgment), and that the versions given by Mark and Q are the result of reinterpretation by the Christian Church in the light of the experience of the apostles at Pentecost, when the Spirit was seen to descend in tongues of flame. The theory fits well with John’s repeated emphasis on a fiery judgment, and with the fact that twelve of his disciples professed never to have heard of the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:2); and a prediction of this kind seems to be reflected in a saying of Jesus in which his death is described as a fire that he has been sent to kindle and a baptism that he must undergo (12:49f).

Even if this third view is adopted, however, it must not be thought that John was a prophet of unrelieved gloom. This would be to do less than justice to his winnowing metaphor. The ancient method of winnowing was to toss shovelfuls of mixed grain and chaff into the air, so that the wind might blow away the chaff, while the grain fell back on the threshing floor. The primary purpose of the winnower was not to dispose of the chaff, but to gather the wheat into his granary. In the same way, the Messiah would come to gather to himself the new Israel over which he was to reign as King, and it is for this reason that Luke can describe even the fulminations of John as a preaching of good news.

2nd SUNDAY OF ADVENT (C)

A voice of one crying out in the desert:"Prepare the way of the Lord."

Lk 3:1-6

WILLIAM BARCLAY

To Luke the emergence of John the Baptist was one of the hinges on which history turned. So much so is that the case that he dates it in no fewer than six different ways.

• Tiberius was the successor of Augustus and therefore the second of the Roman emperors. As early as A.D. 11 or 12 Augustus had made him his colleague in the imperial power but did not become sole emperor until A.D. 14. The fifteenth year of his reign would therefore be A.D. 28-29. Luke begins by setting the emergence of John against a world background, the ground of the Roman Empire.

 The next three dates Luke gives are connected with the political organization of Palestine. The title tetrarch literally means governor of a fourth part. In such provinces as Thessaly and Galatia, which were divided into four sections or areas, the governor of each part was known as a tetrarch: but later the word widened its meaning and came to mean the governor of any part. Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. after the reign of about forty years. He divided his kingdom between three of his sons and in the first instance the Romans approved the decision.

• (a) To Herod Antipas were left Galilee and Peraea. He reigned from 4 B.C. to A.D. 39 and therefore Jesus' life was lived in Herod's reign and very largely in Herod's dominions in Galilee.
• (b) To Herod Philip were left Ituraea and Trachonitis. He reigned from 4 B.C. to A.D. 33. Caesarea Philippi was called after him and was actually built by him.
• (c) To Archelaus were left Judaea, Samaria and Edom. He was a thoroughly bad king. The Jews in the end actually petitioned Rome for his removal; and Rome, impatient of the continual troubles in Judaea, installed a procurator or governor. That is how the Romans came directly to rule Judaea. At this time Pilate, who was in power from A.D. 25 until A.D. 37, was Roman governor. So in this one sentence Luke gives us a panoramic view of the division of the kingdom which had once belonged to Herod the Great.

 Of Lysanias we know practically nothing.

Having dealt with the world situation and the Palestinian political situation, Luke turns to the religious situation and dates John's emergence as being in the priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. 

There never at any time were two high-priests at one time. What then does Luke mean by giving these two names. The high-priest was at one and the same time the civil and the religious head of the community. In the old days office of high-priest had been hereditary and for life. But with the coming of the Romans rule the office was the object of all kinds of intrigue. The result was that between 37 B.C. and A.D. 26 there were no fewer than twenty-eight different high-priests. 

Now Annas was actually high-priest from A.D. 7 until A.D. 14. He was therefore at this time out of office; but he was succeeded by no fewer than four of his sons. And Caiaphas was his son-in-law. Therefore, although Caiaphas was the reigning high-priest, Annas was the power behind the throne. That is in fact why Jesus was brought first to hirn after his arrest (John 18: 13), although at that time he was not in office. Luke associates his name with Caiaphas because, although Caiaphas was the actual high-priest, Annas was still the most influential priestly figure in the land.

Verses 4-6 are a quotation from Isaiah 40: 3-5. 

When a king proposed to tour a part of his dominions in the east, he sent a courier before him to tell the people to prepare the roads. So John is regarded as the courier of the King. But the preparation on which he insisted was a preparation of heart and of life. “The King is coming,” he said , “Mend not your roads, but your lives.” There is laid on everyone of us the duty to make his life fit for the King to see.

1st Sunday of Advent (C)

And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 

Lk 21:25-28. 34-36 

Lk 21:25-28 

This passage concerns the end of the ‘time of the Gentiles’ and the judgment of mankind.

Lk resumes his narration of the cosmic signs, but now introduces a Christological dimension: Jesus, the victorious Son of Man, is in control of the forces of evil whether these are wars (v. 9) or sea (v. 25). He is the judge.

vv. 25-26. There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Luke’s apocalyptic description, based on Mk 13:34, has been influenced by Is 13:10 and Ps 65. More clearly, too, the whole world is involved (v. 26).

The powers of heaven are the heavenly bodies, identified with the gods of oriental and Greco-Roman religion and regarded by Jews as angelic beings created by God and allowed by him to preside over the destinies of pagan nations (Dt 32:8; Is 24:21, 34:1-4). Thus, shaking these powers denotes not so much the ruin of the physical universe as the overthrow of pagan imperial supremacy.

v. 27. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

The fulfillment of Dn 7:13f. Lk sets aside Mk 13:27.

In place of ‘the clouds of heaven’, which Mark derived fom Dn 7:13, Luke has simply ‘cloud’. It is an alteration which establishes a link between the glorious advent of Christ and other events in the gospel story in which the same cloud of the divine presence is mentioned (9:34).

v. 28. But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”

This verse looks back to the signs of v. 25f. The cosmic events that will terrify the nations will indicate to the followers of Christ that the time of persecution is ending. Their ‘redemption’ (a Pauline word, cf. Rm 3:24; 8:23; Eph 1:7) is drawing near.

These signs before the End do not contradict 21:34f. The End will be preceded by signs, but yet the Son of Man will appear like lightning.

This verse bursts with a message of confidence and hope for the disciples. In contrast to the cowards actions of other men and women (vv. 26-27), the faithful disciples stand erect with heads held high to greet their faithful judge, Jesus, Son of Man (cf. 9:26; 12:9).

Lk 21:34-36

Lk has replaced the passage Mk 13:33-37 with an admonition to watchfulness (cf. 1 Thess 5:1-11), one influenced by his realization of the delay of the Parousia.

By placing the parable of the fig tree (Mk 13:28-31; Lk 21:29-31) after the description of the coming of the Son of Man, Mark has shown that he understood it to be a warning to be ready for the imminent Parousia. By itself, however, the parable suggests quite a different application: for it could easily have been spoken by Jesus as a warning to be ready for the disaster which was overhanging Jerusalem and which would on day be, quite literally, ‘at the very gates’ (Mk 13:29). Luke has followed Mark’s interpretation and has eliminated any possible ambiguity by introducing the words “the kingdom of God”.

As in Mark’s Gospel, this parable is followed by a declaration that all things will be accomplished within a generation (Lk 21:32-33). Mark undoubtedly understood this prediction to include the Parousia, and he was writing at a date near enough to the time of Jesus to feel no embarrassment about such a prophecy. But Luke, writing fifteen to twenty years later, was in a different case. We should expect him to interpret the saying otherwise and there is every indication that he did so. For his discourse ends with instructions to the disciples to pray that they may have strength to escape ‘all these things’, and it is a reasonable assumption that for him ‘all things’ in v. 32 covered the same set of events as ‘all these things’ in v. 36. But from the Parousia and the final consummation of the kingdom there could be no escape, nor can we imagine the disciples of Jesus being taught to pray for any. The disciples were taught to pray that they might survive the preliminary crises of persecution and the siege of Jerusalem. These, according to Luke, were the events which Jesus declared would happen before a generation has passed away. 

CHRIST THE KING (B)

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33rd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

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