This Sunday’s readings might
seem bipolar or schizophrenic. We begin
Mass with exultant cheering as we relive Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We end the Readings on a note of solemn silence,
unable to process the reality of one of the most egregious abuses of judicial
process and power in human history, in which the only innocent man ever to live
is executed. What does it all mean?
Despite a few mysterious
prophetic texts that seemed to intimate this possibility, the idea that the
Messiah could arrive and subsequently be killed was radically counter-intuitive
to most of first-century Jews.
Yet the conviction of the
early Christians, based on Jesus of Nazareth’s own teachings about himself, was
that the radically counter-intuitive impossibility was actually prophesied, if
one had the eyes to see and the ears to hear it in Israel’s Scriptures.
The Readings for this Mass
offer us two of the most poignant prophecies of the suffering of the Messiah.
1. Isaiah 50:4-7, the First
Reading, is part of one of the several enigmatic “servant songs” characteristic
of the second part of Isaiah (Isaiah 40-66).
(I follow Benjamin Sommer in seeing Isa 40-66 as a literary unit.) The subject of these “songs” or poems is a
mysterious “servant” of the Lord, who is described variously in the first,
second and third person:
The Lord GOD has given me
a well-trained tongue,
that I might know how to speak to the weary
a word that will rouse them.
Morning after morning
he opens my ear that I may hear;
and I have not rebelled,
have not turned back.
I gave my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
my face I did not shield
from buffets and spitting.
The Lord GOD is my help,
therefore I am not disgraced;
I have set my face like flint,
knowing that I shall not be put to shame.
a well-trained tongue,
that I might know how to speak to the weary
a word that will rouse them.
Morning after morning
he opens my ear that I may hear;
and I have not rebelled,
have not turned back.
I gave my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
my face I did not shield
from buffets and spitting.
The Lord GOD is my help,
therefore I am not disgraced;
I have set my face like flint,
knowing that I shall not be put to shame.
Isaiah 50:4-7 is a
first-person account of the Servant. He
refers to his persecutions: “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my
cheeks to those who pulled out the beard.”
Yet he is confident of vindication: “I have set my face like a flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame.”
This is the lesser of two
passages in Isaiah that speak of the sufferings of the servant. The other, more famous and longer, passage is
Isaiah 52:13–53:12, which the Church saves for the Good Friday liturgy.
With respect to both
passages, we may well take up the query of the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:34):
“About whom does the prophet say this, about himself or about some one else?”
It is a puzzle. Traditionally the passage has been understood
as the writing of Isaiah the prophet of Jerusalem. Yet we know of no physical persecution of
Isaiah like this. Modern critical
scholarship divides Isaiah into at least three different main sections, with
different authors and a multitude of anonymous “redactors” or editors. Isaiah 50 might be attributed to an exilic
“deutero-“ or “second Isaiah.” Yet nothing
is known about the personal life or ministry of this hypothetical prophet,
aside from speculation based on the text of the oracles themselves.
The common conviction of the
followers of Jesus of Nazareth is that these texts speak of Him; moreover, that
the prophecies of the Scriptures of Israel only make sense and come into focus
when seen in the light of the life, death, and resurrection of this Jesus, who
was and is the anointed Servant.
So we can take the words of
Isaiah 50 as the words of Jesus himself.
Although he submits to torture and death (“I gave my back to those who
beat me …”) he knows that he will be vindicated (“knowing that I shall not be
put to shame”). This confidence in the
midst of suffering is important for interpreting the Gospel for this Sunday.
2. The Responsorial
Psalm—Psalm 22—is perhaps the most dramatic in the psalter, and has always been
understood as a prophecy of the passion:
R. (2a) My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
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.”
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Indeed, many dogs surround me,
a pack of evildoers closes in upon me;
They have pierced my hands and my feet;
I can count all my bones.
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
They divide my garments among them,
and for my vesture they cast lots.
But you, O LORD, be not far from me;
O my help, hasten to aid me.
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
I will proclaim your name to my brethren;
in the midst of the assembly I will praise you:
“You who fear the LORD, praise him;
all you descendants of Jacob, give glory to him;
revere him, all you descendants of Israel!”
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
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.”
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Indeed, many dogs surround me,
a pack of evildoers closes in upon me;
They have pierced my hands and my feet;
I can count all my bones.
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
They divide my garments among them,
and for my vesture they cast lots.
But you, O LORD, be not far from me;
O my help, hasten to aid me.
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
I will proclaim your name to my brethren;
in the midst of the assembly I will praise you:
“You who fear the LORD, praise him;
all you descendants of Jacob, give glory to him;
revere him, all you descendants of Israel!”
R. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
In Christian interpretation,
we are used to thinking of the Old Testament as speaking literally (for
example, of the “promised land”), but these literal statements receive a
figurative fulfillment in the New Testament (the “promised land” =
heaven). In certain instances, however,
this pattern is reversed. Psalm 22 is an
example.
In certain places, the
psalmist (David, according to tradition) describes his afflictions in a way
that can only be figurative or hyperbolic: “I am poured out like water,” “all
my bones are out of joint,” “they have pierced my hands and feet,” “I can count
all my bones.”
We know of no instance where
any of these things were true literally of David or any other Old Testament
figure. They are emotive overstatements
of the psalmist’s suffering. Yet, they
receive a literal fulfillment in
Christ. The literal fulfillment in
Christ’s passion is a condescension of God to us. It is God writing in big letters in order
that we get the point.
Psalm 22 is one of the most
complete Todah psalms in the entire
psalter.
Todah means
“thanks” or “praise,” and the Todah is
the “sacrifice of thanksgiving” legislated by Moses in Leviticus 7:11ff. It was a kind of animal sacrifice not offered
in reparation for sin, but out of thanksgiving for some saving act that the
LORD had done for the worshipper.
Excellent work on the Todah and its significance for the
psalms has been done by Hartmut Gese, followed by Joseph Ratzinger, and
summarized superbly by our own Michael Barber.
The Todah was a festive sacrifice offered as part of a lived cycle of
experiences in which you (1) began in a situation of distress, (2) cried out to
God, (3) made a vow to offer the Todah
if God would save you, (4) God saved you, (5) you paid your vow by offering the
Todah sacrifice in the temple, (6)
you had a festive party as you and your family and friends ate the meat of the
sacrifice and all the bread that was required (see Leviticus 7:11ff), and (7)
you gave public testimony to all assembled in the Temple concerning how God
saved you.
Interestingly, the Passover,
if categorized according to the genres of sacrifices in Leviticus 1-7, would
fall under the category of the Todah sacrifice.
The Todah is significant to the Psalter, because it seems that a large
number of Psalms were written for part or all of the Todah cycle described above.
Important Todah psalms include Psalm 116 (my
personal favorite), Psalm 50, 56, 100, and several others, including perhaps
the most complete, today’s Psalm 22.
Jesus cites Psalm 22 from the
cross. The so-called “Cry of Dereliction,”
(“My God, My God ...”) is, of course, actually the first line of Psalm 22.
I think Jesus’ cry from the
cross is over-read theologically sometimes, as if it indicated that Jesus felt
utterly separated from the Father, and had lost the beatific vision.
Of course, Our Lord’s
sufferings were extreme, and difficult for us to comprehend, but the cry of
dereliction is not proof that he lost the beatific vision or experienced
radical separation from the Father.
The psalms in antiquity were
almost certainly not known by their present numberings, because the numbering
systems varied according to different editions of the psalter (for example,
Qumran’s 11QPalmsa). The way
to refer to a psalm was probably by it’s first line—a practice similar to the traditional
Jewish naming of biblical books by their first words (also done in the Catholic
tradition with Papal documents).
So when Jesus cites “My God,
My God ...” from the cross in today’s Gospel, he is really making a reference
to all of Psalm 22, inviting the bystanders to interpret what is happening to
him in light of this psalm.
With that in mind, fast
forward to the end of Psalm 22. How does
the Psalm end? Our Responsorial includes
some of the end:
I will proclaim your name to my brethren;
in the midst of the assembly I will praise you:
“You who fear the LORD, praise him;
all you descendants of Jacob, give glory to him;
revere him, all you descendants of Israel!”
in the midst of the assembly I will praise you:
“You who fear the LORD, praise him;
all you descendants of Jacob, give glory to him;
revere him, all you descendants of Israel!”
The “assembly” spoken of here
is the qahal in Hebrew, the ekklesia in Greek, the Church in
English. It’s a mystical prophesy of the
glorification of God in the Church, which will ever praise Him for the
salvation he accomplished for his messianic servant.
Too bad our Responsorial only
quotes part of the end of the Psalm, because many other things are mentioned in
Ps 22:22-31, including the “poor” eating and being satisfied (v. 26;
Eucharistic typology) and future generations praising God (vv. 30-31; the
transmission of the faith through the generations).
Let’s ask ourselves the question,
“Did Jesus knew how the Psalm ended?”
I suspect he did (of course!). Though he was in agony on the cross, he also
knew this was the path to triumph (see Mark 8:31; 9:31;
10:34; 14:58; 15:29). Psalm 22
begins in agony but ends with eternal victory.
3. The Second Reading is the famous “Christ
Hymn” of Philippians 2:
Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
did not regard equality with God
something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
This famous passage—often
thought to be a early Christian hymn or creed that St. Paul is quoting—gives an
outline of the whole Gospel. Jesus did
not see “equality with God as something to be seized,” using the Greek word harpagmon, from a root harpazo, “to snatch or seize, often
quickly or violently.” Jesus is thus a
contrast with the Greco-Roman mythical hero Prometheus, who ascended to the
realm of the gods and “snatched” fire, bringing it back to man in an effort to
attain equality with the divine. So
Prometheus has always stood as an icon of rebellion against God or the gods,
and a worldview that imagines the divine as opposed to or limiting the
human. In this worldview, humanity is
liberated and fulfilled at the expense of the divine; the realm of God must be
rolled back to make way for the kingdom of man.
This spirit continues to animate the New Atheist movement in our own day
(with their flagship publisher, Prometheus Books), which is more a
miso-theistic (God-hating) cultural force than an a-theistic (no-God) one.
In contrast to Prometheus,
Jesus does not conceive of the relationship between God and man as one of antagonism,
in which the divine nature must be violently “snatched” from the Divinity. Jesus empties himself of the glory of his
divinity in order to descend to the status of creature, of “slave.” Crucifixion was the form of execution
mandated for slaves; citizens could not be crucified. Having taken on human nature, he submits to
the death of slaves: “even death on a cross.”
But paradoxically, this great act of self-giving love shows the glory of
Jesus and the glory of God. Truly, a God
who would so empty himself out of love is greater, more lovable, more worthy of
worship, than a God who will not give of himself. The cross is the glory of our God. So God the Father bestows on Jesus “the Name
which is above every name”, so that at the Name of Jesus, “every knee should
bend.” St. Paul probably has in mind
here the ancient ritual of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), on which,
according to the Mishnah, the High Priest would exit the Holy of Holies after
making atonement for Israel and pronounce the priestly blessing of Numbers 6
upon the gathered worshipers. This was
the one day a year (apparently) when the Divine Name YHWH was pronounced
audibly, and each time the assembly heard the name pronounced, they dropped to
the ground in prostration. The name of
“Jesus” is now heir to the glory of the divine name YHWH. In the Name of Jesus we now find
salvation. Thus, in the Catholic
tradition we bow the head at the Name of Jesus and celebrate the Feast Day of
the Most Holy Name of Jesus (Jan 3), for which our present text is an optional
Second Reading.
Unlike the New Atheists, the
Jesus and his disciples do not regard the divine-human relationship as one of
antagonism where goods are “snatched” from each other, but a relationship of
communion, love, and self-gift. The
human is not exalted at the expense of the divine; rather, human and divine are
exalted together. God and man are
mutually glorified by loving each other.
Humanity becomes more human by becoming more divine. Divinization also humanizes.
4. Our Gospel Reading is one of the longest of
the year: the whole Passion account according to Luke 22:14-23:56. There is so much going on in this passage, it
is impossible to comment on it all. Just
a few remarks:
· In his account of the Institution of the Eucharist,
Luke stresses Our Lord’s insistence that he would not eat or drink again until
the coming of the kingdom. This sets us
up to appreciate the significance of the meals Jesus shares with the Apostles
after his resurrection (Acts 10:42).
They indicate that the kingdom has indeed come. The Church is the manifestation of the
kingdom on earth.
· Luke also stresses the identification of the
Eucharistic elements as the new covenant itself: “This cup is
the new covenant in my blood,” that is, consisting
of my blood, Jesus says. Luke alone
records Jesus saying “new covenant,” a rare phrase that occurs only one place
in the Old Testament, in Jer 31:31.
Jesus clearly means to indicate that the promised new covenant of
Jeremiah 31:31-34 (worth re-reading!) is being fulfilled here and now. The new
covenant IS Jesus’ body and blood. As Scott Hahn is fond of pointing out, the
new covenant is not a book, but a sacrament.
The Eucharist is the new covenant, full stop. That’s worth pondering. Since a covenant is the extension of kinship
by oath, what better oath-ritual could there be than to actually have the covenant members eat the flesh and blood of the
covenant-maker. You are what you
eat! We are Jesus! No, seriously. Ponder these verses: Gal 2:20, Acts 9:4.
· Jesus actually confers the kingdom on the shoulders of
the Apostles, who are his 12 officers over the Kingdom (see 1 Kings 4:7), right
at the Last Supper. The Greek word used
is actually the verb, “to make a covenant.”
Jesus literally “covenants” the kingdom to the Apostles. This shows us the close relationship between
the new covenant and the kingdom, which becomes visible in the Church.
· The promise of thrones to the Apostles is fulfilled
and manifest in their successors the bishops, who sit on their kathedra and judge the various “tribes”
of the reconstituted Israel.
· Simon Peter’s weakness and authority both come to
light. Jesus knows he will flee
(weakness) but commissions him to regather the other apostles when he comes to
his senses (authority). The whole
history of the Papacy is wrapped up in those few verses.
· The threefold denial of Our Lord is a round
number. Jesus meant: deny me at least
three times. Actually, Peter made many
formal and informal denials during the whole process. The different Gospels are selective, and
sometimes choose different episodes as examples of the “three denials.”
· Jesus response to the Council when questioned about
being the Messiah: “You say that I am,” is not as ambiguous as it sounds to
us. It’s clearly an affirmation and they
understood it as such. It’s a bit like
our English idiom, “You said it!”
· Luke records Pilate trying to evade condemning Jesus
by sending him to Herod (a descendant of Herod the great). Pilate clearly doesn’t think Jesus has done
anything wrong, and uses several techniques to try to get Jesus off the hook,
like making the crowd choose between Jesus and a hated terrorist
(Barabbas). Nonetheless, Pilate cannot
be excused for capitulating to the unjust demands of the crowd. It was a failure of fortitude.
· Luke records Jesus’ last words as “Father, into
your hands I commend my spirit,” a quote from Psalm 31:5. It is a todah
Psalm, very similar to Psalm 22, and with the same significance. Much of Psalm 31 sounds like a description of
Jesus’ sufferings on the cross, yet it ends with triumph. Jesus knew he would be vindicated by a
resurrection (Matt 16:21).
· Luke alone records the words of the centurion
proclaiming the innocence of Jesus, probably because he knew his Greek-speaking
Roman readers would appreciate the testimony of a relatively high-ranking
military officer.
· The “linen cloth” that Joseph uses to wrap the body of
Jesus is often thought to be the Shroud of Turin, that amazing cloth which
seems to have taken a snapshot of the deceased body of Jesus just prior to his
resurrection.
All of us have been baptised
into the death of Christ (Romans 6). The
mystery of the cross makes itself felt in all of our lives. The Christian life is, in fact, in constant
tension between suffering death and being raised to new life. We can’t hold on to our lives as Christians:
the only path forward is constant consent to our own interior (and sometimes
exterior) deaths, which constantly leads to interior (and ultimately bodily)
resurrection. It’s not an easy path of
salvation and I think I would have preferred God had chosen another, but we
must trust that a God who loves us so much as to die for us, also chose for us
the best path of salvation.
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