Tuesday of Week 3 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Mark 3:31-35

We know that many of Jesus’ family already thought he was mad, and he had become an embarrassment to them. Now they come to the house where Jesus is teaching and, standing outside, send in a message asking for him. Do they want to talk with him or to remove him from what he is doing?

The message is sent in:

Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.

To which Jesus replies:

Who are my mother and my brothers?

And pointing to those sitting at his feet listening to his teaching, he says:

Here are my mother and my brothers!

And he clarifies that further by adding:

Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.

We should note that Jesus’ family is described twice as being on the ‘outside’. They are ‘outsiders’. By implication, those sitting in a circle with Jesus are on the ‘inside’—they are the ‘insiders’.

What Jesus is clearly saying is that being on the ‘inside’ is not just a question of location, but of relationship. That relationship is not by blood, but by identification with the Way of Jesus. To be a Christian is to enter into a new family, with stronger ties than those of blood, and where everyone is seen as a brother or a sister. The ‘insider’ is defined simply as anyone “who does the will of God”. So, it can include those who are not Christian at all.

A disturbing question that might arise from this passage is the status of Jesus’ mother, Mary. Was she also on the ‘outside’? The answer is an unequivocal no! We know from Luke’s Gospel that, when invited by the angel to be the mother of Jesus, Mary gave an unconditional ‘Yes’.

Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word. (Luke 1:38)

This was her total surrender to the will of God, and it was something that she never withdrew through all the difficulties she experienced and, most of all, when the “sword of sorrow” pierced her heart as she saw her own Son’s heart pierced on the Cross. She was with him to the very end, and finally would share his joy in the Resurrection.

On one occasion, when Mary was praised as blessed and privileged for having a Son like Jesus, Jesus replied:

Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it! (Luke 11:27-28)

Mary is on the ‘inside’, not because she was the mother of Jesus, but because of her totally identifying with his mission and being with him to the very end. May we be able to say the same.

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Tuesday of Week 3 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Hebrews 10:1-10

In a final reflection, Hebrews continues by pointing out the inadequacy of the Law to take away people’s sins. The old dispensation was only a shadow of, and a prefiguration for, what was to come.  It could not, through sacrifices repeated year after year on the Day of Atonement, bring about the lasting  reconciliation of God with his people.

Otherwise, if the people really had no consciousness of being any longer in sin, why would they have come year after year to make the sacrificial offering?  On the contrary, the repetition of the same sacrifice was only a confirmation of an ongoing sense of guilt for their sinfulness.  The simple fact of the matter is that the blood of bulls and goats is quite incapable of taking away sin, of bringing out about a lasting reconciliation with God.

The author then quotes words from Psalm 40 (vs 6-7) as a foretelling of what was really needed to bring about this reconciliation.  He puts the words of the psalmist on the lips of Christ himself at his incarnation, when he “came into the world”.  The author follows the Septuagint (Greek text of the Old Testament), which is somewhat different from the original Hebrew, but is more suited to his argument.

It is not sacrifices and other offerings that the Father wants.  Instead he has provided his Son with a body, a body that will be offered in sacrifice for all of us.  The Father takes no pleasure in “sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings”. These four things, mentioned in Psalm 40, are probably indicating the four principal types of Old Testament sacrifices: peace offerings; cereal offerings; burnt offerings or holocausts; and sin offerings (including guilt offerings mentioned in Lev 5:14-26).

Jesus acknowledged that the Old Testament sacrifices did not remit the sins of the people and so, perceiving the will of God, offered his own body for this purpose.  Jesus then, through the Psalmist, says:

See, I have come to do your will.

The highest form of sacrifice is our total union with the will of God.

The former dispensation is now abolished, and the offering of Jesus takes its place in a new dispensation.  So now, it is by God’s will, carried out by Jesus in his death, that we become:

…sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

It was the total surrender of the Son to the Father that effectively and forever interceded for the removal of our sin. Each one of us has to mirror that surrender in our own lives, making the will of God our own. Only then we will experience the total liberation that God wants for us as we become united as one with him.

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