Tuesday of Holy Week – First Reading

Commentary on Isaiah 49:1-6

Today we read the second Song of the Servant of Yahweh. The prophet again speaks in words that apply very suitably to Jesus. Jesus has been called from all eternity to do this work of salvation. He is a “sharp sword” and a “polished arrow”.

God says,

You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.

But Jesus must surely be tempted to say, with Isaiah:

I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity…

Surely it must have looked like that as Jesus hung dying on the cross, his mission a shambles, his enemies victorious and his disciples in total flight. On the cross, Jesus cried out with these heart-rending words:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matt 27:46)

Yet he had been chosen as a servant so that “Jacob”, i.e. Israel, might be brought back to him:

You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.

His God is his strength, and his moments of darkness become the moment of glory:

I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

As indeed has happened. But who, standing at the foot of the cross on that first Good Friday, could have seen the outcome of this ‘failure’? Yet, that is what we celebrate during this week.

The Servant says:

Listen to me, O coastlands;
pay attention, you peoples from far away!

These are the people of the lands along the Mediterranean and beyond the seas whom we saw mentioned yesterday. The message of the Servant is for them—and hence for all of us—for me.

The Lord called me before I was born;
while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.

The language is similar to that of the call of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 1:5) and of Paul (Gal 1:15). And, as Christians, we believe this is true of all of us, that:

…he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. (Eph 1:4)

Again the Servant speaks:

He made my mouth like a sharp sword…
he made me a polished arrow…

Later, the Letter to the Hebrews will compare the Word of God to a two-edged sword, which penetrates into the deepest recesses of our hearts, bringing both consolation and wisdom, and discomfort for our wrongdoings.

And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.

“Israel” here is generally understood to be descriptive of, not of the nation, but of an individual, representing the best that Israel should be. Perhaps we, too, should be less arrogant when we apply the term ‘Christian’ to ourselves, knowing how far we are from what Jesus is calling us to be.

I said, I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity…

As he hung on the cross, his mission apparently a failure and mocked by those bent on destroying him, these words would seem to fit Jesus so well. It will be in the third and fourth songs that we will begin to see the place of all the pain and suffering in the mission of Jesus:

…yet surely my cause is with the Lord
and my reward with my God.

In spite of apparent failure, the cause of Jesus will be vindicated and his mission will be a success.

And now the Lord…
who formed me in the womb to be his servant…

And the Servant carried out that call to the very end, and with wondrous results. We, too, have been in the mind of God from eternity and been given a special call. How do I see that call at this time?

…to bring Jacob back to him…
that Israel might be gathered to him…

This verse is a reference to the release from captivity in Babylon and the return to Jerusalem. But there is the wider connotation of bringing God’s people back to union with him. And it will not be just Israel, because a little further on the passage says:

I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

The Servant’s mission is the conversion of the whole world to his Way. Along with Genesis 12:1-3 and Exodus 19:5-6, this verse is sometimes called the “great commission of the Old Testament” and is quoted in part by Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13:47. Christ is the light of the world (Luke 2:30-32; John 8:12, 9:5) and Christians reflect his light:

You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world.
(Matt 5:14)

Is that the way I see myself? Let me hear Jesus say these words to me as I watch him on the Cross during these days.

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The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

Commentary on Isaiah 49:1-6; Acts 13:22-26; Luke 1:57-66,80

He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. (John 1:7)

John the Baptist played a unique role in the history of God’s people. He acted as the bridge between the Hebrew and Christian Testaments. He basically belongs to the former, but was present at the beginnings of the latter. At the same time, he died before Jesus had completed his work, and before the Church came into existence.

Jesus praised his greatness, but also said that even the least in the Kingdom was greater than he. Although he knew and proclaimed Jesus as the one for whom all were waiting, and the thongs of whose sandals he was not worthy to loose, he never saw Jesus as his Risen Lord, a privilege granted to the very least of the baptised.

His primary title is Precursor. His mission was to go ahead of the Messiah and proclaim his coming. As he said modestly himself, Jesus must increase while he himself must decrease. The success of his mission would eventually make him redundant. And that is still the role of the missionary today—to plant the church and then withdraw, leaving it in the hands of the new local community.

Many parallels
Today we celebrate the birth of John the Baptist. In Luke’s Gospel, there are many parallels between the birth of John and that of Jesus. Both births were announced in advance: in John’s case to his father Zechariah, and in Jesus’ case to his mother Mary.

The birth of John was a special blessing to his parents, who were already advanced in age, and particularly to Elizabeth. So when the birth took place, it was a special occasion of rejoicing among relatives and neighbours. When they:

…heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her…they rejoiced with her.

In this time, everyone thought it was a shame for a woman not to give a child, especially a son, to her husband.

In accordance with custom, the child was circumcised on the eighth day after birth. This ritual showed that the child belonged to God’s own people. It was also the day on which the child was officially named. Also in keeping with their culture’s traditions, it was expected that the child would be called Zechariah after his father. But Elizabeth interjected to say that he should be called John. This came as a surprise as there was no one of that name in the family.

The father was then consulted. Because he had doubted the angel’s words at the announcement of his son’s conception, Zechariah’s ability to speak had been taken from him. He was possibly also deaf, because the people communicated with him by signs. He replied by writing on a tablet:

His name is John.

This was the name the angel said should be given to the new-born child. This act of obedience on the part of Zechariah resulted in his speech coming back and his glorifying God, and as a result:

Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea.

The whole event was clearly understood as a direct intervention of God. And people began to wonder about the child in front of them. They asked:

What then will this child become?

All the circumstances of his birth indicated that he was no ordinary child and that God had a special mission for him.

In the desert
In words similar to those used of Jesus, we are told that the boy grew up and matured. Probably his elderly parents died while he was young and he went to live in the Desert of Judea, which lies between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. And it was there, along the banks of the River Jordan, that he began his public preaching. He would have been about 30 years of age, the same age as his cousin, Jesus.

His calling to serve the Lord is expressed in the passage from Isaiah in the First Reading:

The Lord called me before I was born;
while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.

His unexpected birth was revealed to his father and his name given to him.

He made my mouth like a sharp sword…he made me a polished arrow…

John was an effective prophet and herald. The reading also implies the suffering and frustrations that were part of John’s life. In the end he was thrown into prison and, on the whim of Herod’s illegitimate wife, executed. But his life was not in vain. He became, in the words of the reading:

…a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

John was the last, and in some ways the greatest, of the Hebrew Testament prophets. As the preface for today’s Mass says, he was chosen:

…from all the prophets to show the world its redeemer, the Lamb of sacrifice.

It was he, who in John’s Gospel, points out Jesus to his disciples as the “Lamb of God”.

Apart from preaching a message of repentance and conversion to the large number of people who came to hear him, he:

…baptised Christ, the giver of baptism, in waters made holy by the one who was baptised.

He is presented as a man of total honesty and integrity. Perhaps it was this which attracted so many to come and hear him. And because of this, he ultimately lost his life when he denounced King Herod, who had married his brother’s wife. He was:

…found worthy of a martyr’s death, his last and greatest act of witness to your Son.

A model for all of us
John the Baptist’s life has a special meaning for all of us. We are, through our baptism, also called to be precursors of the Lord. Our baptism imposes on us an obligation to share our faith and to give witness to the Way of Jesus, both in word and action. There is no other way by which the average person can come to know and experience the love of Christ.

It is well put by Paul, writing to the church at Rome a long time ago:

…everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Rom 10:13-16)

In that sense, we are all called to be ‘preachers’. Our lives individually and collectively are meant to send out a message and an invitation—an invitation to come and join us and share our experience of faith, love and fellowship.

If we are honest, we know that we do not do that nearly enough and, in fact, often give an opposite message altogether. As the philosopher-unbeliever Nietzsche said:

“If they want me to be Christian, they will have to look as if they are saved.”

The signals we send out as individuals, as families, as parish, are really the only way that people who are searching for meaning in their lives may be led to find that meaning in the gospel. Let us ask John the Baptist today to help us by the way we live our lives to clear a path which will draw people closer to knowing and experiencing Christ.

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