7 January – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 4:12-17,23-25

Jesus has been baptised in the Spirit of his Father, and he has triumphed over the temptations of the Evil One during his 40 days in the wilderness. He is now ready to begin his public ministry.

When Jesus heard that John had been arrested for accusing Herod of adultery (because Herod had taken his brother’s wife as his own), Jesus withdrew from the region of the Jordan River where he had been with John, and went to the northern province of Galilee where he had grown up.

The word translated as ‘arrested’ literally means ‘handed over’, and is an expression that occurs repeatedly in the Gospel. It first refers to John the Baptist being ‘handed over’, and then to Jesus being ‘handed over’—first to the leadership of the Jews, and then to the Romans. Later, it will be used of the disciples being ‘handed over’ to various authorities because of their preaching the gospel. Finally, it is used at every Eucharist (though somewhat invisible in our present translation). At the consecration of the bread the celebrant says:

This is my Body which will be handed over [given up] for you.

Jesus had left Nazareth and his family, and Matthew tells us he went to live in “Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali”. Capernaum will appear several times in Gospel stories.

For Matthew, Jesus’ going there fulfils a Hebrew Testament prophecy from Isaiah (9:1-2):

Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the gentiles—
the people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light…

These two territories were the first to be laid waste by the Assyrian invasion in 733 BC. Isaiah promised them a great future that is now being realised. Matthew stretches things a little to fit the prophecy in that Capernaum was in Naphthali and the sea mentioned by Matthew is the Sea of Galilee, while the prophecy actually refers to the Mediterranean.

Jesus’ preaching is summarised in one sentence:

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.

It is very similar to the message that John the Baptist gave, but coming from Jesus, it is much richer in meaning. John proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom; Jesus himself is the coming of that Kingdom. ‘Repent’ means much more than the meaning we normally give to the word, namely, to regret or to be sorrowful for wrongs we have done. Here it is translated from the Greek word metanoia, which encompasses a complete and radical turnaround in the way we see life. It is not concerned with the past, but rather with the future.

The “kingdom of heaven” does not refer to the future life. It is not saying that we are all imminently about to leave this earth. “Heaven”, here, is a euphemism for the name of God, which Matthew, writing for Jewish Christians, does not want to use. Among the Jews, God’s name was so holy that it could not be uttered by humans. Rather, the phrase ‘kingdom of heaven’ refers to the effective power of God’s presence here on earth, sometimes called God’s ‘reign’ on earth. And that Kingdom is near because it is embodied in the person of Jesus himself. He represents the effective presence of God’s power, and that is seen clearly in the second part of today’s passage. It is the power of love and healing.

At this point in Matthew’s Gospel he also relates the calling of the first four disciples, those who would be partners with Jesus in the proclamation and the realisation of the Kingdom. But it is omitted in our reading for today.

We finish with a summary of the ‘Kingdom work’ that Jesus was doing. He went all over Galilee, teaching in the Jewish synagogues. His preaching consisted of the proclamation of the nearness of the Kingdom, and that was illustrated graphically by his healing all kinds of sicknesses. Healing means restoration to wholeness, and the goal of the Kingdom is a restoration to wholeness of the whole world.

Jesus’ fame even extended to the whole of the Roman Province of Syria, of which Galilee was a part. Large numbers of people came from these places in search of Jesus and they brought to him people suffering from all kinds of sicknesses. In addition to Galilee, they also came from the Decapolis (meaning ‘ten cities’), a federation of Greek cities mainly lying on the east side of the Jordan, from Judaea and its main city Jerusalem, and even from across the Jordan River.

It is time now to stop looking back at the Christmas celebrations, and look forward and examine why Jesus was born and the mission he had to do. Jesus’ coming to Capernaum is the coming of light in darkness. Jesus’ call to repentance is really a call to radical conversion, a turning round completely to face our Lord. In him the Kingdom of Heaven is here among us. That is shown by the work that Jesus does: teaching, announcing the Good News of his coming and healing all kinds of disorders, including the physical, mental and emotional.

May we too experience a deep desire for conversion and also experience the healing power of Jesus in our lives, so that we may become agents to heal others.

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7 January – First Reading

Commentary on 1 John 3:22—4:6

Today we have a passage very rich in meaning and deserving of a lot of reflection and prayer. The reading is in two parts. The first part (3:22-24) speaks briefly of what is needed to be a true follower of Christ; the second set of verses (4:1-6) warns us against being deceived by false prophets into following misleading paths.

John begins by assuring us that whatever we ask, we will receive from God. And how do we know that?

Because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

And what are these commandments? He immediately tells us that they are just two in number:

…that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.

Beyond these two commandments, we need absolutely nothing else. All the rest that we have been taught may be called the icing on the cake. It is not that other elements of our Christian life are not important, but without these two fundamentals, the rest is nothing.

And it is not surprising that, when we live our lives with this faith and love, our prayers will be heard, because what we ask will be wholly in harmony with being closer to Jesus in commitment, love and service. As John says:

All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them.

It is a kind of symbiotic relationship which colours all ‘whole’ lives.

In the second part of today’s reading, we begin to consider what the writer says is the third condition to love as God’s “children”, and that is to be on guard against “false prophets” (antichrists) and against the world. It is a matter of distinguishing between the good spirit, the Spirit of Christ, and other spirits which can mislead us. It is through the Spirit of the Father and Jesus that we know we are in Christ, and that he is in us.

But John warns us that not all “spirits” come from God. We need to:

…test the spirits to see whether they are from God…

This is what we now sometimes refer to as ‘discernment of spirits’. There are many influences in our lives coming from various sources—all will come under the guise of good, but some are in fact leading us astray.

We need to examine these influences. Following the good spirit will bring ‘consolation’, a sense of rightness and peace. A wrong spirit will bring ‘desolation’, a sense of unease and restlessness. These are not at all to be confused with pleasure or pain. To choose a more painful way may well bring consolation, and we know we have made the right choice.

For John, the good spirit will lead us to recognise that Jesus, in his human body, is a revelation of God. It was precisely this that the Gnostics, and especially Cerinthus, denied, as for them all matter and flesh were evil. In God’s creation, we believe that everything he has made is good and is a reflection of his own Goodness. And our acknowledgement of Jesus Incarnate is not simply something intellectual—even the demons knew that God was in Jesus—but something that we confess publicly through our living.

To deny this is to be led by the antichrist, epitomised in the teaching of the Gnostics, who are the false prophets mentioned. They speak under the influence of evil spirits who are alienated from God. In the Gospel Jesus, too, warned about such false prophets (e.g. Matt 7:15; 24:11). So, too, did Paul (e.g. 1 Tim 4:1).

As long as we are of God and in Christ, we have nothing to fear. We do not belong any more to the ‘world’, the world of sin, the world of hate and greed, the world of corruption, deceit and violence. Those who know God will listen not only to him, but to those who are clearly his spokespersons. And each one of us is called by our Baptism to be a spokesperson, an evangeliser for the message of Christ.

We have to learn how to distinguish clearly where and in whom is the Spirit of truth, and where and in whom the spirit of falsehood resides. We can all be torn between these two ‘worlds’—the world of Christ’s Spirit, and the spirit of the ‘world’. Of course, much of the time we try to have our cake and eat it. We realise that we would like to be fully in Christ, but know that we have not quite gotten there yet.

Let us ask Jesus today to help us keep those two great commandments of faith (trust) and love, and to help us to be able to recognise his Spirit in our lives and reject all those false influences which lead us astray.

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