Son of God!

Wednesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time C-2

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 86 (85):3, 5 Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I cry to you all the day long. O Lord, you are good and forgiving, full of mercy to all who call to you.

Collect God of might, giver of every good gift, put into our hearts the love of your name, so that, by deepening our sense of reverence, you may nurture in us what is good and, by your watchful care, keep safe what you have nurtured. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Scripture today: 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Psalm 32; Luke 4:38-44

Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them. When the sun was setting, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, You are the Son of God! But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ. At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent. And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea. (Luke 4:38-44)

Son of God! Our passage today is from the Gospel of St Luke, and one of the distinctive features of this Gospel is the extensive Infancy narrative it contains. There is twice as much given on the Infancy in Luke than that provided in the Gospel of St Matthew, and it is not hard to divine that Mary is the principal source, whether directly or indirectly. The birth, the mission and the titles of Jesus are introduced by the Angel Gabriel in his address to Mary. The Angel announces to her that she is to conceive a son whose name will be Jesus. He will be great. What is to be observed is that the first of the titles the Angel gives to him is precisely “the Son of the Most High.” The second is that of Messiah-King, ruling over God’s people in an eternal kingdom. While the chosen people expected the coming of the Messiah, the first and foremost thing which the Angel announces is that Jesus will be the Son of the Highest One. At Mary’s puzzlement in view of her virginity, he emphasizes the point again: “the Holy One to be born will be called Son of God” (Luke1: 32-35). The words of Elizabeth, inspired by the Spirit, may be seen as a vague allusion to this exalted title: “How is it that I am visited by the mother of my Lord?” Christ’s title of Son of God came in the first instance from the Angel Gabriel speaking on God’s behalf. It was a revelation from heaven delivered to Mary his mother. This same revelation is made once again in the Infancy narrative, and this time it comes from the lips of Jesus Christ himself. At the end of their three days’ search, Mary and Joseph found the boy Jesus in the Temple with the doctors. His reply to their exclamation is profoundly revealing, and doubtless is the reason why Mary reported it, and why Luke recorded it. “Why were you seeking me?” Jesus said to them. “Did you not know that I had to be about my Father’s matters (en tois to patros mou)?” From his earliest years Christ had the same consciousness of being the Son of God that he displayed and revealed during his public ministry. Jesus spoke of God as his own Father, and his last breath was a final cry to God under this distinctive title (Luke 23:46).

This, then, is the principal thing about Jesus Christ. He is not the Son of God because he is the Messiah, but if anything, he is the Messiah because he is the Son of God. His divine sonship is the greatest and most fundamental thing about Jesus of Nazareth — and it is the point where there is a parting of the ways. The title “sons of God” was not uncommon in the Old Testament. It referred at times to angels, at times to human judges or rulers, at times to the ruler of Israel, at times to Israel as a people. It was a title used in the pagan world too. But Christ’s use of the title was utterly unique. “Before Abraham ever was,” he said, “I am.” “I and the Father are one,” he claimed. In 42 BCE, Julius Caesar was formally deified as "the divine Julius" (divus Iulius). His adopted son, Octavian (better known by the title "Augustus" given to him 15 years later, in 27 BC) thus became known as "divi Iuli filius" (son of the divine Julius) or simply "divi filius" (son of the Divine One), because of being the adopted son of Julius Caesar. He used this title to advance his political position. But of course all that was meant was that he was the son of a god, a deified ancestor. Christ, though, claimed to be the only Son of the one and only God. Nothing like this had been heard of or imagined in the history of God’s chosen people, and there was no exact parallel to it in the vagaries of polytheism, be they Roman, Greek, Egyptian, or whatever. The leaders of the Jews saw perfectly clearly that, in speaking of God as his own personal Father, Jesus was making himself equal to God, and so they sought even the more to kill him (John 5:18). The point is that this is and was the pre-eminent fact about Jesus of Nazareth, and the devils in our Gospel scene today were wide awake to it. We read that “When the sun was setting, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, You are the Son of God! But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ” (Luke 23:46).

The entire underworld was filled with consternation at this new Arrival. They were now confronted with One who transcended all, and before whom they were powerless. The broken and suffering world, ultimately the work of Satan and sin, was now being re-shaped by a hand stronger than any other force in the universe. Jesus Christ was and is all-powerful because he is the Son of the living God, equal to the Father, and sharing fully the Father’s nature. What a tragedy it is to fall away from him! Let us take our stand with him then, and fight to the finish.

(E.J.Tyler)

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A Second Reflection: (1 Corinthians 3:1-9)

The Work of God in Our Life In St Paul's words to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 3: 1-9) he reminds us of a great work that is going on in our souls as a result of the ministry of the Church. We are "God's farm, God's building" (vs.9). God "makes things grow," he writes. The growth is directed towards transforming each of us into another Christ, living his life. This is an astounding adventure, the one thing necessary to be achieved in the brief span of life we have been given. Conversely, we are also God's servants and fellow workers who are called to labour in this farm, this building God is constructing. Our privilege is to play a part in its growth in the likeness of Christ. God will be making things grow through our efforts. In this way the results of our labours will endure for eternity.

So let us use our time to labour, to labour in union with the Lord, knowing that "each will be paid according to his share in the work. We are fellow workers with God; you are God's farm, God's building."

(E.J.Tyler)

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