13B18. Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:23-24. “God did not make death nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.” God did not create death but only life. Death entered the world through the sinful disobedience of Adam and Eve (Romans 5:12). “God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him.” He made us to be his sons and daughters in his image and likeness (Genesis 1:27), living forever happily with him.

Mark 5:21-43. Jairus pleads, “My daughter is at the point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live.” Despite the report that the daughter has died, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid; just have faith.” Jesus goes and tells her to arise and she does. Jesus gives her physical health as a sign to all that he wishes to give us the health that is eternal, called holiness. He is the God that robs death of its power to be the eternal termination of life. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:52b: “For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” Paul continues in 1 Corinthians 15:54c-55: “Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?”

The woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years says to herself, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.” “She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, ‘Who has touched my clothes?’” Although he was jostled about in the crowd and many people were rubbing up against him, none had done so with the faith to be cured at that moment. Her faith had released the curative energy from Jesus without Jesus even knowing who had done it. The power of faith is that we hand ourselves to the power of God. The God who created us to be loved by him and to live in his love forever is the God who will give only good things to those who wish to live in his love. In Matthew 7:11 Jesus says, “If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.”

2 Corinthians 5:21-43. Apparently, expecting Jesus to return soon after his ascension into heaven to end the world and take all who believed in him to heaven, the Christians in Jerusalem sold all they had, shared the proceeds with one another and waited for the Second Coming of the Lord. When the Lord did not come, they were living in abysmal poverty. In this Sundays’ second reading, Paul makes an appeal to the Corinthians to support the Christians in Jerusalem. Basically Paul is saying be generous as Jesus was generous, giving his life for us. You who have much should give to those who have nothing so that both of you should have something. This message blends in with the other two readings in that God is the generous giver who gives good things to those in need, even health to the sick and life to the dead. Live in the goodness of God!

NativJB18B. Jeremiah 1:4-10; Isaiah 49:1-6.

In both of these readings I understand that in each one the prophets have been inspired to write of themselves. Jeremiah in writing, “Before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you,” believes that God is speaking this to him. Again Isaiah in writing, “For now the Lord has spoken who formed me as his servant from the womb, that Jacob may be brought back to him and Israel gathered to him,” is referring to God’s calling him to be a prophet to Israel and then to all the world. These readings are then seen in an extended sense to refer to John the Baptist as one who prepares the people to receive to receive the Messiah and yet further these readings can be seen to refer to Jesus, God making himself a man among men, who is to suffer in bringing the People to God the Father.

Luke 1:5-17. Luke 1:57-66, 80. The angel, who is God’s messenger, announces the birth to Elizabeth who has never had a child and is now beyond the age to conceive, and gives him the name John. “He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb, and will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God” “to prepare a people fit for the Lord.” The birth of John the Baptist is a unique historical and spiritual event because he is to proclaim the coming of the Messiah. The miraculous cure of Zechariah made clear that this child was destined by God to accomplish his mission as were the prophets of old.

1 Peter 1:8-12. Peter wrote that the prophets prophesied about the grace that was to be given for the salvation of souls. That salvation has been announced “by those who preached the Good News” “through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven.”
Acts of the Apostles 13:22-26. From David’s descendants God sent “to Israel a savior, Jesus.” “John heralded his coming by proclaiming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.” John said of himself in John 2:23, “I am ‘the voice of one crying out in the desert, “Make straight the way of the Lord.”’ as Isaiah the prophet said.”

11B18. Ezekiel 17:22-24. “Thus says the Lord God: I, too, will take from the crest of the cedar,” “a tender shoot, and plant it” “on the mountain heights of Israel” and it shall “become a majestic cedar.” After the Babylonians had enslaved the Israelites and exterminated the ruling family in Jerusalem, Ezekiel is saying that God will reestablish the Davidic line of rulers and his kingdom in Israel again. Referring to Israel God says he will “lift high the lowly tree” “and make the withered tree bloom.” As Christians, we see this as foretelling of Jesus founding the kingdom of God on earth.

Mark 4:26-34. Using parables, Jesus hopes to give the crowds some idea of how it is with spiritual kingdom of God that he seeks to create. The man who scatters the seed is perhaps the good follower of Christ whom the Spirit uses to bring the word of God to others. The one who makes the seed sprout, grow and become fruitful is the Holy Spirit himself. The harvest is the gathering into heaven of the souls who have cooperated with the work of the Holy Spirit in them and grown day by day in the faith. In the next parable Jesus emphasizes the smallness of the mustard seed, perhaps to say that, with just a little willingness in one’s heart, God can make a wonderful saint out of anyone. Mark writes: “Without parables he did not speak to them, but to his own disciples he explained everything in private.” Learning requires readiness and preparation. What we have learned in the past enables to add or build on to achieve even more learning as one grade in school builds on the year’s previous learning. Learning is not only with the head but also with the heart. Past experiences and choices help us to develop yet further our character and emotional commitment. Jesus explains the parables in private to his own disciples because, having been with Jesus far more than the crowds, they know more and are more committed to Jesus. Jesus builds on our readiness and dedication to grow spiritually.

2 Corinthians 5:6-10. Paul writes: “We are always courageous; although we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yet we are courageous, and we would rather leave the body and go home to the Lord.” To get a better understanding of these lines it helps to get a Bible and to read the verses that precede the ones we have above. In this life while we truly do have the Lord because of our God-given faith; yet we will have God far more when we can actually see him in heaven. We have the first installment on our home in heaven because God has given us the Holy Spirit who helps us to develop further as saints, who are the only people God allows to see him in heaven. We need to have courage each day because life in this world is a struggle against the temptations from the devil and the world itself. Life is this world was not easy for Jesus and likewise is not easy for us.

Paul continues: “Therefore, we aspire to please him, whether we are at home or away. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil.” In my own mind we should love to please him because we enjoy his loving us so much. Receiving recompense naturally flows from being loyal and faithful. Family is family just for the joy of being loved and loving others because we are so filled with love that we cannot do anything else but love. With Christ living in us and we living in Christ, we are already living the heavenly life to the degree that life in this world will allow us. Jesus said in John 15:4a: “Remain in me, as I remain in you.”

10A18. Genesis 3:9-15. Disobeying God’s command, Adam and Eve had been taken in by the ruse or scheme of the devil. God recognized that they had lost their innocence, because they had eaten of the fruit of the tree of good and evil, when Adam said, “I heard that you were in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.” The innocence of infants and little children knows no fear or threat of evil and so nakedness poses no problem for them. Feeling the vulnerability of nakedness shows that we recognize that we can be attacked and hurt by what is evil. Being without clothes to protect us from our vulnerability is like not having armor to shield us from attack. The serpent is treated here as an evil animal but later interpretation will see him as the devil in disguise. The offspring of the woman that will strike at the devil’s head, for us as Christians, is seen to be Jesus who being human himself as well as divine, is the champion for all of humanity in our struggle against evil. The devil will use every lowly device to strike at Jesus, which, to my understanding, is to say that the serpent or devil will be striking at his heal.

Mark 3:20-32. “Jesus came home with his disciples.” I am imaging that he returned to his own hometown of Nazareth. The gospel reading for this Sunday at one point speaks of his ‘relatives’ and then at another, of his ‘mother and brothers’ and then yet at another point, of Jesus’ ‘brother and sister and mother’. I understand these are all a reference to Jesus’ relatives or extended family that lived in Nazareth. They were understandably concerned that Jesus and his disciples were so deeply involved and successful in curing people in his ministry that they had hardly time to eat. I remember a mother having hardly any time to care for her own needs but somehow managed to feed herself between bites of food for her own daughter. I imagine that that is what Jesus and his disciples did. His family were important to him as blood relatives but infinitely more important to Jesus were those who were seeking to be spiritually related to God, those who would become the family of God in heaven by treating God as the God of their lives on earth. “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” What will lift us up to heaven is obedience to God our Father’s will; whereas, the downfall of Adam and Eve was their disobedience.

The section of this Gospel that talks about Beelzebub and Satan should be read as section separate from the first and last parts that talk about Jesus’ extended family (Mark 3:20-21, 31-35). The scribes, those who studied the Law and interpreted it, accused Jesus of working as an agent of Satan, who gave Jesus the power to order demons out of people. First, Jesus says it makes no sense for Satan to drive out Satan, thus defeating his own diabolic work in life. Secondly, Jesus says that, since he drives out demons by the power of the Holy Spirit, in effect the scribes are committing the unforgiveable sin of saying that the Holy Spirit was doing the devil’s work in driving out demons. In Jesus’ parable Satan is the strong man that the Holy Spirit ties up and from whom the Spirit takes the away the people that the demons had possessed. The people that the devil had possessed were the property that the Spirit plundered from the strong man’s, i. e., the devil’s, house. Here Jesus uses the imagery of war: “To the victor go the spoils.” The victory is God’s; the devil is defeated.

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1. A “spirit of faith” is engendered by the grace that God gives those who wish to believe in Jesus. Paul writes, “We are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” Physical things, including our bodies, must deteriorate but we put our faith in what is spiritual, that remains for all eternity. Paul continues, “We look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal. For we know that if our earthly dwelling, a tent, should be destroyed, we have a building from God, a dwelling not made with hands, eternal in heaven.” As long as we are loyal to the Lord, the Lord is loyal to us. The victory that belongs to God also belongs to us who choose to belong to God. In Ephesians 3:16b-18a, 19 Paul writes, May you “be strengthened with power, through his Spirit in the inner self, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”