PalmC19.   Isaiah 50:4-7.  This is the prophecy of the Suffering Servant, probably Isaiah speaking of himself but in Holy Week transferred to Jesus.  “My face I did not shield from buffets and spitting.”

Psalm 22.    Jesus repeats the first verse: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” while on the cross as if to start saying the whole psalm.  “All who see me scoff at me; they mock me with parted lips, they wag their heads: ‘He relied on the Lord; let him deliver him, let him rescue him, if he loves him.’”  Jesus genuinely feels the excruciating pain of his body and the insults.  This is not a sham sacrifice to the Father for our sins; this is the real thing wholly and completely.  By this genuine sacrifice of himself to His Father, we are redeemed.  It could be nothing less.  How great is his love for us!  In spite of the unfathomable horror he is enduring, he never losses faith in the Father, saying to him, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Luke 22:14 – 23:56.  Jesus, referring to the sacrifice he was about to make, offers up in the Eucharistic form his own body, saying, “This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.”  Although the bread visually appears to be only bread, it now comes in substance to be his body which he himself offers up and commands us to do likewise in our Mass.  Jesus continues the tradition of the Old Testament Law of consuming the flesh of the sacrifice by those who offer it up.  Leviticus 7:6 reads, “All the males of the priestly line may partake of it; but it must be eaten in a sacred place, since it is most sacred.”  Leviticus 7:15a says, “The flesh of the thanksgiving sacrifice shall be eaten on the day it is offered.”  The sacrifice on the cross happened then once and for all; the Mass re-presents that same sacrifice over and over again.  Please read John 6:53-57.  Jesus becomes the food and indeed the spiritual life itself of our being.  “Then an argument broke out among them about which of them should be regarded as the greatest.  Jesus makes it clear to them that service, love in action, is the measure of greatness.  He proclaims to them they will have a special place in his kingdom in heaven.  In the Our Father prayer Jesus teaches to pray, “Thy kingdom come” to God the Father, which I believe calls upon the Father to establish his kingdom here in the hearts of those who believe in his Son Jesus.  Both Pilate and the ‘good thief’ find that Jesus is not guilty of any crime.  Nevertheless Pilate allow Jesus to be put to death, since it was politically expedient not to have news of a big riot get back to the emperor.  On the other hand, the ‘good thief’ rebukes the other crucified thief out of respect for what is righteous.  As with the Apostles, Jesus rewards him with a place in heaven.  That is the same reward that we seek because of our loyalty to Christ our King.  We want to live eternally in the love of the Christ who loved us so deeply and dearly that he died for us on the cross.

Philippians 2:6-11.   God, though magnificently almighty, out the depths of his love for the human beings he created, became a creature of his own creation, a helpless fetus and then infant, genuinely and totally dependent upon another creature, his mother Mary.  “He emptied himself,” taking on humanity so that one day he could offer himself as the redemptive sacrifice on the cross.  “Because of this, God greatly exalted him” so that “every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

 

5LC22.     Isaiah 43:16-21.    The Lord did wondrous things for the Hebrews in the past.  However he says, “Remember not of the events of the past.” “See, I am doing something new!”  “For I put water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland for my chosen people to drink.”  God in his love for us wants us to always look forward to what more he has for us.

John 8:1-11.  The scribes and the Pharisees were trying to entrap Jesus by making him choose to obey the Jewish Law and so go against the Roman law that forbid the Jews from putting people to death.  Of course, Jesus chose neither but rather forgiveness.  So he challenged the adulterous woman to live a new sinless life.  When we sin, Jesus calls us to repent and to begin again anew, “forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead.” (Philippians 3:13b)

Philippians 3:8-14.  Paul wrote, “For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him.” “Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.”  Our journey through this life to heaven is leaving behind all that is not of Christ so that we grow more in Christ.

5LC19.   Isaiah 43:16-21 & Psalm 126.   The almighty God has done wondrous things for his people, parting the sea and destroying the army that set out to destroy his people.  To form a people for himself he led them through the desert, giving them water to drink and food to eat.  His people praise him for the great things he did for them by leading them out of captivity from both Egypt and Babylon.  They come back rejoicing. God saved his People!

John 8:1-11.  The Pharisees and scribes brought to Jesus a woman caught in adultery so that they could test him.  If he agreed that she should be stoned, then he could be brought before the Roman authorities who forbade executions without their permission.  On the other hand, if Jesus refused to allow her to be stoned to death, he could be brought before the Jewish authorities for disobeying what Moses had prescribed.  The genius of Jesus is that he put the decision right back into their hands with the stipulation that “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  That put the onus on each individual to declare by his action that he was without sin.  That community of Jews knew one another well enough so as to know who was innocent and who was not among them.  What Jesus wrote on the ground is not stated but I think we can guess that he wrote things that challenged their innocence.  So they all left one by one.  John the Evangelist often uses language on two levels of meaning, literally and figuratively or metaphorically.  Here perhaps he is using the phrase “Jesus bent down” to say he went down to the lower level to deal with sin and then “Jesus straightened up” to say he went up to a higher level to raise the standards to a higher level that is virtue.  The adulterous woman is sent off to live at that higher level.  Jesus said in John 3:17: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”

Philippians 3:8-14.  Paul’s expression of his personal faith is a wonderful summary of what we should all be living for.  Paul has come to know the invisible Jesus both personally and spiritually.  Now living his life in Christ, anything else in this world that is not in tune with that relationship with Jesus feels to him to be just “so much rubbish.”  Paul seems to me to be saying: ‘I am nothing if Christ is not my life; I have everything’ “since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ Jesus.”  In many of his epistles Paul reflects a rejection of the kind of religious life that many of the Jews seem to have had in his day that made the rituals and regulations of the Law to be as a god for them without actively having God himself as the supreme ruler of their lives.  However, as long as we are in this world, the struggle is not finished.   Paul writes, ‘I am’ “straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, Christ Jesus.” Let us join him!  As for the adulterous woman and Paul, Christ Jesus is our eternal salvation.

4LC22.    Joshua 5:9a, 10-12.    “The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I have removed the reproach of Egypt from you.’”  God is saying that he has removed the dishonor, disgrace or shame from the Hebrews that was theirs since they were used as work horses by the Egyptians.  Now God made them a new creation, having their own land and eating the produce of that land.

Luke 15:1-3, 11-32.    In this parable Jesus answers the complaint of the Pharisees and scribes that he “welcomes sinners and eats with them.” The father rejoices that his prodigal son has come “to his senses” in recognizing the disgrace of his gross sinfulness.  His son has become a new creation, rejecting his old ways and seeking reconciliation with his father.  The elder son, who is similar to and is as a parallel to the scribes and Pharisees, is offended that so much positive attention is being given to the scoundrel son, while he, who has been always loyal to his father, seems to be just taken for granted by his father.  The father responds, “My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours.”  The father is calling upon the son to live daily in the joy and delight that his father has for him.  God is love.  Being fully a son or daughter of God should be a joyful, life-giving daily experience.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21.   Paul writes, “Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” To be ‘in Christ’ is to be reconciled by Jesus who no longer holds our trespasses or sins against us but unites us to the Father.  Having been entrusted to deliver ‘the message of reconciliation’, Paul and his fellow missionaries encouraged everyone to recognize their sinfulness and seek to be united wholly and fully to God the Father.

4LC19.   Joshua 5:9a, 10-12.    God has led the Israelite people across the Jordan.  Then “the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I have removed the reproach of Egypt from you.’”  I understand the ‘reproach’ that God has removed to be the shame, disgrace or dishonor of their subjection to a state of slavery to the Egyptians.  God’s promise to give them a land overflowing with milk and honey is now in the process of being fulfilled. Their exodus from Egypt began with the celebration of the Passover and now ends outside Jericho with that same celebration.  God’s loving mercy has powerfully delivered what was tragically lost to become something whole, holy and new: the Israelite People in possession of their own land.

Luke 15:1-3, 11-32.   Jesus answers the complaint of the Pharisees and scribes that “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them” in this 15^th chapter of Luke with three parables.  The first two parables in Luke 15:4-10 of the ‘Lost Coin’ and the ‘Lost Sheep’ (which are not included in this Sunday’s reading) come to the same conclusion as the third parable of the ‘Prodigal or Lost Son’: God rejoices that those who were lost to sin are now found so that they can return to a proper relationship with God, holiness.  The younger son on demanding that he now get his inheritance without having to wait until his father dies is in effect saying to his father ‘as far as I am concerned I now consider you dead’.  He then leaves to squander his part of his family’s hard earned fortune on a period of dissipation with prostitutes.  Penniless, with nothing to eat, he decides to return to his father, no longer as his son since he had considered his father as dead to get his inheritance, but as a hired hand.  On his return, “while he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.”  Although the younger son just tries to get a job from his father, the father will have nothing of that since he loves his son so deeply.  He welcomes his son with the finest robe, a ring, sandals and a spectacular feast, since his son “was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.”  It struck me that this will be the kind of celebration that there will be when a repentant sinner gets to heaven.  In Jesus’ three parables in Luke 15 those who were lost but whom Jesus is now seeking to have returned to a state of holiness are analogous to the sinners that the Pharisees and the scribes are complaining about.  In turn the older son is analogous to the Pharisees and the scribes who have always been obedient to the Law.  Jesus is saying that they should be of the same mind as the father in the parable who rejoices at the return of the sinner to be reconciled to God, the Father.  As God’s love is merciful, so should we be.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21.   “Whoever is in Christ is a new creation.”  The question is what does it mean to be “in Christ.”  1 John 4:16 says, “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us.  God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.” Whoever remains in God’s love for us remains in God.  1 John 5:12 says, “Whoever possesses the Son has life; whoever does not possess the Son of God does not have life.”  I have God; God has me.  Without God, life is as material life is, that ends in rot.  In John 6:53b, Jesus says “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.”  In John 6:56, Jesus says, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”  To be “in Christ,” means that Christ is our life; neither we nor anything or anyone is our life but Christ.  Christ is everything for us;  anything or anyone else is nothing to us, except to the degree that we relate to it or them out of our relationship to Christ.  Carrying that a step further is to say, “We are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us.” Since we have found such peace, joy and truth from our life in Christ, we ought to strive to bring everyone into that same relationship with Christ.  As we are in Christ, everyone should also be in Christ.  We are ambassadors from a spiritual world to a people who belong in heart and mind to an earthly world that does not relate to spiritual reality.  We have the ministry of reconciliation, i.e. to reconcile or re-establish the proper relationship between God and ourselves and others around us, to bring, not only ourselves but, all to be in Christ.

3LC22.   Exodus 3:1-8a, 13-15.     “An angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in fire out of a bush.”  When Moses approached, God said, “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. I am the God of your fathers.”  Seeing the affliction of his people in Egypt, God announces that he has come to rescue his people from the hands of the Egyptians.  God reveals that he is “I am who am” or Yahweh.  He is to be remembered as the God who is kind and merciful, always thinking of and pouring out his goodness on his people.

Luke 13: 1-9.  Jesus points out that failure to repent for our sins leads to the destruction of our souls.  The Holy Spirit has been given to us in our baptism.  Daily he pours his divine grace into us so that we are enabled to become a holy people.  If we fail to cooperate with that grace so to grow in holiness, we will be like the tree that was cultivated and fertilized but did not bear fruit.  We will be cut down and perish.  God, because he loves us dearly, pours his grace into us but he demands fruitful results.

1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12.  Paul uses the example of the Hebrews in their exodus from Egypt to point out that God was with them but, since they were not always with God, few of them who left Egypt reached the Promised Land.  Paul is warning us not to be complacent and think that we are doing all there is to be done.  We must live in the hands of the Lord and not our own.  On our own we can never become a holy people.

3LC19.   As Moses was tending a flock, he saw that a “bush, though on fire, was not consumed.  Approaching the burning bush, God called out to Moses, “Come no nearer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.  I am the God of your fathers.”  Speaking to Moses, God said that he came to rescue the Israelites from their afflictions at the hands of the Egyptians “and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”  First, Moses was to tell the Israelites: “I AM sent me to you.”  God lives not where time progresses from the past through the present to the future but in the eternal now without any progression in time because he is always infinitely the same who can never gain or lose anything.  He is absolutely perfect always. Secondly, he uses his infinite power to rescue his loved ones from danger.  He is not a god who is aloft and distant but a God who is present and involved because he is love.

Luke 13:1-9.  Jesus says, “If you do repent, you will all perish as they did!”  Lent is the time to be deeply aware of the horrible peril of hell.  We are the fig tree in the parable.  Produce the fruit that is holiness or be cut down and cast into the fire of hell.  The Lord will fertilize us with his grace but he demands results.  He will not accept any excuses.

1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12.  Paul tells the Corinthians that those who went through the desert exodus with Moses “all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink;” “yet God was not pleased with most of them.” Going through a past that had many spiritual connections, does not mean necessarily that we learned to give our hearts over to God.  Evil befell them and “they were struck down in the desert,” “examples for us, so that we might not desire evil things as they did.”  They are “as a warning to us.” “Whoever is thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall.”  Both Apostles Peter and Judas fell.  One repented; the other perished.  Human nature of itself cannot save us.  It will lead us naturally to be dependent on our own resources and be led by our human nature to do what we want.  James and John, the sons of Zebedee, and their mother asked for the sons to take the places of greatest honor in Jesus’ kingdom.  It is human nature to get ahead and leave the others behind.  However Jesus said in Matthew 20: 27-28, “and whoever would be first among you must be your slave; even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many.” It is human nature to desire to be in control.  To follow Christ means to let God be in control.  That is the cross that Jesus demands that we carry.  One moment being filled with God’s grace and so desiring that we belong to God’s Will only; the next, being naturally who we are and so wanting to run things our self.

2LC22.     Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18.    The Lord God promised Abram that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.  “Abram put his faith in the Lord, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.”  Then God confirmed and sealed that promise by sending a smoking fire pot and flaming torch to offer up Abram’s sacrificial offering.  Sometimes God comes mightily and gloriously; at others, quietly and hardly perceptible yet effectively.

Luke 9:28b-36.  This is the Transfiguration where Jesus, Moses and Elijah appear in glory.  Moses and Elijah represent the Law and the prophets.  Jesus is the fulfillment of what the Lord God had started in the Old Testament.  In the first exodus God led his people from slavery, through liberation and then to the Promised Land.  In Jesus’ paschal exodus he leads his faithful from his death through to his resurrection and then in his ascension to heaven.  A cloud came, and “from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘this is my chosen Son; listen to him.’” In John 1:14, we read, “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.”  Since “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ,” (John 1:17b) we are being called to open ourselves to him so that his love of us is our life.

Philippians 3:17-4:1.    To listen to Jesus means to live a life in which Jesus is always communicating with us and we, with him.  “Observe those who thus conduct themselves according to the model” we have in those who are holy.  In the lives of those among us who are holy God communicates with us what he wants us to hear and learn from him.  Something of heaven is already in us who live with him as our life-giving force.  Paul contrasts the destruction that befalls those whose “minds are occupied with earthly things” versus the glory that comes to those, though still on earth, who conduct themselves as citizens of heaven.  The day when he takes us out of this world and up to heaven, “he will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.”  Jesus said in John 17:22-23a: “And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me.”  Our loving Jesus shares his glorious self with us so that we, to the degree we are united to him, are transfigured gloriously with him.   As we give ourselves over more and more to him, he shares himself more and more with us.

2LC19.   Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18.  God promised Abram, who was a simple, childless wanderer that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.  Abram took God on his word alone, and it was “credited to him as an act of righteousness.”  To seal that covenant Abram brought animals for the sacrifice which God himself offered up in the darkness with “a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch.”  At that time God gave Abram and his descendants the Promised Land.  God showed his glory in creating his Chosen People, a spectacular work for Abram and as an example for those who put their faith in him.

Luke 9:28-36.  In Luke 9:22 that comes before this Sunday’s reading, Jesus predicts that he will “be killed and on the third day be raised.” In our Sunday’s reading Jesus, taking “Peter, John and James,” “went up the mountain to pray.”  There Jesus was transfigured before them with his clothing becoming a “dazzling white.”  Representing the Law and the prophets, Moses and Elijah “appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.” I take exodus to mean his departure from human life in his offering himself up as a redemptive sacrifice for our sins. The apostles “saw his glory.”  As Peter was speaking impetuously, “a cloud came and cast a shadow over them.” “Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “‘This is my chosen Son; listen to him.’  After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.”  In the transfiguration, Jesus was preparing the Apostles for his passion, death and resurrection. Without denying his humanity, Jesus wanted to assert his divinity.  After Jesus’ resurrection, the Apostles needed to grasp more definitively which the fact that Jesus was not only human but also God.  The Son of God was sent by the Father to become flesh to be the divine living word spoken humanly in Jesus.  The Father commands us: “Listen to him.”  He was love made flesh sent to his children in the flesh, calling upon us to be likewise love in the flesh as Jesus was.

Despite the fact that we are in the flesh, our death on the cross is to die to carnal desires, overwhelming by the grace of God our earthy, animal, bodily temptations.  His glory calls us to be and live as children of the divine, to be in the world but not of the world.

In Luke 11:29-32 those without faith demand a sign so that they must believe because the sign makes them believe. If one believes because they have seen, that is not faith but first-hand knowledge.  Abram and the three Apostles were believers who were given a sign of the glory of God because of their belief, not because of their unbelief.

Philippians 3:17-4:1.  For those who choose to live just as beings of this world with no regard to a life after this world, as in biological taxonomy ‘homo sapiens’, the highest species of animal in this world and nothing more, then “Their end is destruction.  Their God is their stomach; their glory is their ‘shame’.  Their minds are occupied with earthly things.”   1 John 2:15 says: “Do not love the world or the things of the world.”  For those of us who live in this world as people who are just passing through here, “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”  He will take us up into his home, heaven, which will be our final, real and permanent home.  He will change our earthly body to be like his own heavenly body.  1 John 3:2 says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”  This Sunday’s epistle reading continues: “He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body to bring all things into subjection to himself.”  What a joy it is to belong to our glorious God and not to a world where eventually everything rots.

1LC22.         Deuteronomy 26:4-10.   Moses reminds the Hebrews that in Egypt God Yahweh “heard our cry and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.  He brought us out of Egypt with his strong hand” and “gave us this land flowing with milk and honey.”  Not only for the Hebrews but for all those who make themselves his, God provides for us now and forever.

Luke 4:1-13.   “Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil.”  The Holy Spirit was putting Jesus in his humanity through a spiritually- growing and learning experience.  Jesus was still developing from being a carpenter in Nazareth to becoming a teaching, miracle-working Messiah who would be ready to give himself up to be the redemptive sacrifice on the cross.  Jesus in his humanity was coming more and more to entrust himself to the Holy Spirit who was enabling him to be more than a match for the devil and the trials of this world.  Humanity on its own is no match for the devil and the powers of this world but for God all things are possible.  It was Jesus in his humanity, empowered by the Holy Spirit, who repulsed the temptations of the devil.  Defeated, the devil “departed from him for a time” but only to try to tempt Jesus in other ways and forms later.  In this world the devil’s hatred for the goodness of God never stops.

Psalm 91.   “Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble.”  “Say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and fortress, my God in whom I trust.’”  When we call upon the Lord, he hears us and provides for us in his own way and good time.

Romans 10:8-13.  “For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”  “For, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”  Salvation belongs to those who choose in heart and word to belong to the Savior.  Choose to accept the love that Jesus gives us from the cross.  His divine love is the only source of eternal life in a world that of itself can only give us a grave, buried below six feet of dirt.