This blog follows the daily bible readings of the Catholic Church
Reading 1, Isaiah 48:17-19
17 Thus says your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am your God and teach you for your own good, I lead you in the way you ought to go.
18 If only you had listened to my commandments! Your prosperity would have been like a river and your saving justice like the waves of the sea.
19 Your descendants would have been numbered like the sand, your offspring as many as its grains. Their name would never be cancelled or blotted out from my presence.
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The prophets insist the God’s commands are not for some obscure benefit to God but for the good of his people as all parents want their commands to be for the good of their children. Jesus takes this view when he teaches that the Sabbath is made for humanity not humanity for the Sabbath. God’s commands are an expression of his love; and should never be interpreted as legalism. I’m not sure of the truth of Paul’s assertion that “the command intended to bring life brought death.” Jesus is also the command of God: “Be whole!”
suffering servant
Gospel, Matthew 17:9a, 10-13
9 As they came down from the mountain Jesus gave them this order, ‘Tell no one about this vision until the Son of man has risen from the dead.’
10 And the disciples put this question to him, ‘Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?’
11 He replied, ‘Elijah is indeed coming, and he will set everything right again; 12 however, I tell you that Elijah has come already and they did not recognise him but treated him as they pleased; and the Son of man will suffer similarly at their hands.’
13 Then the disciples understood that he was speaking of John the Baptist.
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Jesus simultaneously accepts and re-interprets the prophecies about both Elijah and the Son of Man. The prophecies suggested the easy triumph of God’s justice through his Prophet and his Messiah. Jesus knows that victory will only come through suffering. On the one hand he is resolutely realistic: there will be no superman stuff. On the other he trusts that God will use the suffering of his servants to show his saving justice. Realism and profound faith go hand in hand.
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