Tag Archives: Bible

Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee

The Ode to Joy is a reflection of our Christian attitude. Joy is prominent in Francis’ 2013 Evangelii Gaudium. If the “good news” of our salvation does not bring us to joy, then what will? Does our Creator not intend for us to be happy, to be full of joy? Did not Jesus’ life begin with great joy? “The angel said to [the shepherds], ‘Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people’” (Luke 2:10).

Indeed, our Blessed Mother revealed her most blessed Rosary, and the first decades focus on Joy! In our pilgrimage to the Holy Land this May, we will focus on the locations where Jesus lived, walked, and spoke with us. The five Joyful Mysteries are revealed in the Gospel According to Luke; they rejoice in Jesus’ earthly beginnings… the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies of Emmanuel—God made man. The first two joyful mysteries are proclaimed in the first half of the “Hail Mary,” which we pray so many times in the rosary.

Nazareth

We’ll visit Biblical Nazareth

The Annunciation occurred in Nazareth in Galilee. Nazareth still exists, and we will explore this town where Mary grew up and where, from the archangel Gabriel, she received her revelation of the divine birth of Jesus (see Luke 1:26-38).

The Visitation of Mary with her relative Elizabeth occurred in the hill country of Judea. This is south of the city of Jerusalem, and we will visit this area where Zechariah and Elizabeth raised John the Baptist. “Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, ‘Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb’” (Luke 1:39-56, and at 41-42).

The Nativity of Jesus occurred in the town of Bethlehem, a few short miles south of Jerusalem. We will stay three nights in Bethlehem, and explore the sites of the Nativity, where the angel appears to shepherds, where the shepherds and Magi worshipped, and of course where our Savior Jesus Christ became ‘God made man’ (see Luke 2:1-20).

The Presentation of the baby Jesus—today’s Feast—is a lengthy narrative in the Gospel account of Luke (see Luke 2:22-38). Mary and Joseph present Jesus to the Lord in the temple in Jerusalem. We will visit the one remaining wall of the temple (destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.) during our four-day visit to Jerusalem.

The Finding of Jesus in the Temple memorializes a mother’s joy of finding a lost child; reuniting the family; and the realization that Jesus is no longer a boy but a budding man, preparing for his Father’s work (Luke 2:41-52). This is another great reason that we will visit the Temple in Jerusalem; to contemplate and pray about Jesus’ ministry and the reason for which he was born to woman.

Notice that the entire ‘Infancy Narrative,’ Luke’s introductory two chapters, are summarized as the Five Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary. We will contemplate these as we explore the places of Jesus’ birth and childhood. Join us on the Catholic pilgrimage of a lifetime, when we will pray, contemplate, meditate on, and make come alive as never before, the mysteries of the most holy Rosary during May 15-27. Download the flyer »

Come, Follow Me!

The Year of Our Lord, Two Thousand Nineteen. Yes, two millennia ago, Jesus, Emmanuel, God-made-man, walked the earth among us. He was not a hermit; neither was he an intellectual removed from the common man. Jesus lived among us; he engaged us—he challenged us to follow him (Mk 1:17; Mt 4:19; Lk 5:11). As Jesus’ disciples by virtue of Baptism, we are called by Jesus to follow Him just as he called his first disciples in the afore-mentioned Scripture passages.

Jesus also tells us what is involved in discipleship: to love God and to love each other; to be holy as the Father is holy, to treat others as He treats us (Jn 15:8-10, 12, 17); to witness to Him as He witnesses to the Father; to proclaim the kingdom/reign of God (Lk 9:60, Mt 8:22); and to be committed even to the point of the cross (Mt 10:37-38, 16:24-25; Lk 9:23-24, 14:26-27; Mk 8:34-35). Being Jesus’ disciple—following him—is preparation for entering eternal life with Jesus (Mk 10:21-23).

* * *

To make following in the footsteps of Jesus more real, I am organizing a 13-day Catholic pilgrimage to the Holy Land in May 2019. We will visit, with a priest who lives in Jerusalem and is a very experienced Catholic guide, the main locations where Jesus lived and ministered, and the sites where his Passion occurred. The dates are May 15-27, 2019; for more information contact Eric Wolf (772-932-7969).

Death: Punishment or Consequence?

Throughout the Bible, God reveals Himself to us because of His desire for a loving relationship with each one of us. Sin is our rejection of this loving relationship that we enjoy with God.

St. Paul states, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 6:23) Here we see that death is a result of sin and is the opposite of eternal life in Christ. The connotation of ‘wages’ is that death is something that we earn; it stems from our choice.

Many read parts of the Old Testament and overlook God’s perpetual love; focusing on the repugnant gore and violence, they assign undue weight to the horrible things that happen to people. How could a God who is Love do or allow these horrible things to happen? If God really loves us, the thought goes, would He be so unrelenting and harsh? This theology considers death as a punishment. I suggest instead, and will explain below, that the result of sin (wages earned) is not punishment but rather consequence.

A definition of punishment is “the infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offense”, while consequence is “a result or effect of an action or condition”. If death is punishment, then it would come from God as a penalty for our misbehavior. As consequence, however, death does not come from God, but rather out of the nature of our not accepting the relationship of love that we enjoy with God. Spiritual death is the absence of a relationship with God- our not even acknowledging His existence. Physical death is a consequence of our existence in this material/physical world that is limited by space and time.

Sin – the rejection of God’s intended relationship of love – enters human reality in Genesis 3 with the depiction of Adam and Eve eating of the forbidden fruit. As portrayed in the Bible – Old Testament and New – God’s reaction to sin is one of protection for the sinner. God’s response in Gen 3:17-19 (and Gen 3:16) is clearly that God, in the aftermath of the sin, prepares humankind for life in this new reality that exists as a result of sin. He is not punishing Adam and Eve, but rather lovingly protecting them. God is forewarning them of the new reality that they have chosen; forewarned is forearmed! This understanding is consistent throughout all facets of the Old Testament including the psalms and narrative and prophecy and wisdom literature; it is also consistent throughout the New Testament.

Indeed the Bible, as an indicator of our relationship with God, is the story of our journey from the Garden of Eden through death/sin to redemption/eternal life in Christ as portrayed in Revelation.

In the Old Testament God is consistently the Good Shepherd tending His flock, perpetually bringing the outliers (sinners) back into the fold, i.e., a loving relationship. All it takes is our sincere repentance, which is a result of our acknowledging our true and happy relationship to God: that He is the Creator and we are the Created.

— Eric Wolf

Thy Kingdom Come

The Old Testament, especially the prophets, spoke of the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed one, who would save Israel and usher in the Day of the Lord, that is, the time when God would exercise His power to vanquish evil.

The New Testament Greek noun basileia refers to something associated with a king; in English we translate this word as either ‘reign’ or ‘kingdom’. In the New Testament, Jesus saw His ministry as revealing the presence of the reign or kingdom of God. Jesus himself is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. The reign of God is no longer in the future; when we have faith we are dwelling right now in the kingdom of God.

Jesus healed in order that people would have faith and believe. Jesus taught and preached so that people would understand the new paradigm and believe. The Gospel According to Matthew focuses significantly on Jesus’ teaching and preaching (Mt 5 – 7 et al).

At one point (Mt 6:9-13) Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray- and so we have the Lord’s Prayer. We recall that Hebrew poetry is based not on rhyme as in English tradition but rather on repetition or various types of related parallel phrases. The Lord’s Prayer is a New Testament example of Hebrew parallelism using five supplications each with a parallel phrase.

Our Father who art in heaven = hallowed be thy name

The opening sentence is an example of synthetic parallelism: the second phrase builds on and expands the meaning of the first phrase.

Thy kingdom come = Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven

How often do we unthinkingly break this sentence after the word ‘done’; perhaps for breathing purposes we tend to make two equal size phrases. However, in terms of Jesus’ meaning as He teaches us to pray to the Father, the sentence is better paused after the word ‘come’: ‘Thy kingdom come’ is our basic supplication. What does this mean? Remember one of the purposes of parallel poetry is to confirm meaning.

This is an example of synonymous parallelism, in which the second phrase has the same meaning as the introductory phrase. Typically one phrase can define one or more terms in the other phrase. So we find that ‘Thy will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven’ defines ‘Thy kingdom come’. Jesus doesn’t just announce the coming of the kingdom, He is telling us what that means. The kingdom of God means that the will of the Father is fulfilled not just in the next life but right here and now! Wow, what a difference a Savior makes!

When we pray the “Our Father’ let us put the pause after ‘come’; if we need to break up the second phrase, let us do so to punctuate Jesus’ message by placing a pause not after ‘done’ but rather after ‘Earth’.

— Eric Wolf

Mark: Read All About It!

In reading the Gospel of Mark I was reminded of how newspapers were sold on the street
corners early in the nineteenth century. I can envision the Gospel of Mark being held up on the
street corner and a fifteen year old boy yelling out. “Jesus of Nazareth claims to be the
Messiah!” read all about it. This would be the headline; “Jesus of Nazareth – Messiah or
Impostor?” There would be the story on the front page on how Jesus brought the little girl that
had died back to life, on the following pages stories of the parables Jesus used to teach the
people. Some would say he was an agent of Satan but others that heard Jesus rebuke this
would say Jesus made perfect sense when He said “how can Satan drive out Satan?”

In the commentary section many would have given testimony of how Jesus had fed them when
there was no food and others who had witnessed a man’s withered hand be restored. Others gave false testimony in order to have him crucified. In the opinion section the Sadducees would say “Jesus is a phony, he claims he can forgive sin; only God can forgive sin. We need to silence him, let us ask Pilate to crucify him.”

In the obituary section it would read: “Jesus of Nazareth, died 33 AD after being scourged and
crucified along with two thieves. He had his mother by his side with many friends and well
wishers. He claimed he was the Messiah but the Jewish high priests would not believe him. He
was given over by one of his apostles, Judas Iscariot who was paid twenty pieces of silver to
hand him over to the authorities. Joseph of Arimathea handled the burial arrangements.”

Late breaking story: “Jesus not found in the tomb, Mary Magdalene said Jesus appeared to her
but Apostles skeptical till Jesus appears to them and commissions them to proclaim the Word.

— Mike Gardner