Faith, Love and Christ the Anointed

Today is the 4th Sunday of Ordinary Time. The beginning of the penitential season of Lent, Ash Wednesday is three and a half weeks away.

The Gospel today from Luke is a continuation of the one last Sunday where Jesus read in the synagogue from the 61st chapter of the prophet Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to bring gold tidings to the lowly, to hear the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty, to the captives and release, to the prisoners.”

Isaiah who the messianic prophet in the 7th chapter which speaks of the birth of Immanuel in verse 14 we read, “Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you this sign: The virgin shall bear with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” That name means “God is with us.”

Jesus means savior and Christ is from the Greek meaning the anointed one, the Messiah.

The first words of today’s Gospel are the last from before, “Today thus Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” Jesus had grown up in this small place of Nazareth and had been in the synagogue every Sabbath. “When they heard His words they were amazed and said, ‘Isn’t this the son of Joseph?’ Jesus replied, ‘Surely you will quote me this proverb. ‘Physician, cure yourself’ and say, ‘Do here in your native place the things we heard were done in Capernaum.’ No prophet is accepted in his own native place.”

He goes on to point out to them that God’s ways are not our ways. That He sends His healing where it will be accepted. The people of Nazareth were filled with fury and drove Jesus out and tried to kill Him.

This is the response that Jesus receives from the very beginning to the very end of His life -“rejection”. In the prologue of St. John’s Gospel we read, “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But to as many as received Him, He gave the power of becoming Sons of God to those who believe in His name.”

The next to the last words of Jesus on the cross were “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Today, in Nazareth they intended to kill Him because they didn’t like what He said, because He would not do what He was reported to have done elsewhere. What He could not do because they saw Him only as the son of Joseph and were blinded by a lack of believe that the Son of God was in their midst.

Why did Jesus cure the lame, the halt and the blind and raise Lazarus and the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue from the dead? So that people would believe and believing saves their souls. The soul and the body together are to give honor and glory to God both in this life and in the life to come.

St. Paul in 1Cor speaks of love, of what it is and what it is not. Christ’s first two commandments are, “Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” In our secular culture love is not understood. It is thought of as an emotion or a feeling directed toward the self. “How do I feel?” But true love is sacrificial as exhibited by Christ in His life and death on the cross. He gave of all He had including His human life for the good of others. He loved his own and he loved them to the end. People think that if they give of themselves or their substance they are poorer. But just the opposite is the case. “When you do it to one of these, the least of my brothers, you do it to me. And you shall not lose your reward.” If we enter into the spiritual struggle in order to love God more and ourselves less, overtime we will make progress. And our life in God will become richer and we will become a holy people and God will do great things for us, and in us, and with us for the glory of His name.

We spoke in the beginning about Ash Wednesday being the start of the penitential season of Lent. We will be sealed with the sign of the cross with ashes on our forehead and will hear the words, “Remember man that thou art dust and to dust you shall return.”

We do not belong to the world but to Christ.

In the first reading from Jeremiah we read, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you. A prophet to the nations I appointed you.” What God says to Jeremiah He says to each one of us, “I know you, I called you by name.” “I have a mission for you.”

The last stanza of the Psalm prayer is “My mouth shall declare your justice, day by day your salvation, O God you have taught me from my youth, and till the present I proclaim your wondrous deeds.”

Reflect again on those words of Ash Wednesday, “Remember man that thou art dust and to dust you shall return.” When the moment of our death comes, life is changed not ended, Jesus, Immanuel, God is with us will judge us in accord with our love, love for Him and for Him in our neighbor.

St. Paul’s instruction to us today in first 1Cor is telling, “If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over to be burned, but do not have love I gain nothing. So faith, hope and love remain, these three but the greatest of these is love.”

How do we know what love is? Study the life of Christ and Him crucified.

We do not create or lay out our own personal way to a life after death. Christians follow Him who saved them. The one who said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” The words of the Lord God often stick in our throats because our own agenda crowds them out. We want circumstances to be otherwise more to our liking.

Listen to St. Paul in Galatians 2:20, “With Christ I am nailed to the cross. It is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not cast away the grace of God. For if justice is by the law, and then Christ died in vain.” Christ is life. And there is no other.

The people of Nazareth present in the synagogue hearing the one they knew as the son of Joseph say he was the anointed of God of whom Isaiah prophesied, would not believe, and could not be healed. They saw the human substance but would not grasp the divine form. When they tried to kill Him, Jesus passed through the midst of them and went away. Without belief, without faith Jesus will go away.

The word was made flesh and dwelt among us. That word is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all the seeds, which once it take root and grows becomes the kingdom of God within us. “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain move and be cast into the sea and it will obey you.” All things are possible for Him who believes in Christ.

But always remembering that the God who loves us and died for us is the crucified Lord who says, “Learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart.” And St. Paul’s words, “With Christ I am nailed to the cross, it is no longer I that live but Christ’s living in me.”

Remember man that thou art dust and to dust you shall return.