The One and the Only

Tuesday of the First Week of Advent A-1

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Zec 14:5, 7 Behold, the Lord will come, and all his holy ones with him; and on that day there will be a great light.

Collect Look with favour, Lord God, on our petitions, and in our trials grant us your compassionate help, that, consoled by the presence of your Son, whose coming we now await, we may be tainted no longer by the corruption of former ways. 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: Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17; Luke 10:21-24

In that same hour, Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said: “I praise you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and have revealed them to little ones. Yes Father, for so it has seemed good in your sight. All things have been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is but the Father; and who the Father is but the Son, and those to whom the Son will reveal him.” Turning to his disciples he said, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you that many prophets and kings have desired to see the things that you see, and have not seen them; and to hear the things that you hear, and have not heard them.” (Luke 10:21-24)

The One and the Only The Dalai Lama once said something to the effect that Christ was an instance in history of the Buddha, or an incarnation of him. The gist of his observation was that Christ was one case among many in history of all that the Buddha was and represented. Presumably his idea was that the spirit of the Buddha pervades and is manifested in the great religious founders of history. One of the Roman Emperors had statues of various religious figures including Moses and Christ. They were all deities, as far as he was concerned. When our Lord asked his disciples who people were saying the Son of Man is, he received various answers. Some, his disciples reported, said that he was Elijah, others that he was John the Baptist come back again, others that he was one of the prophets of old. Our Lord knew what people were saying of him but he really wanted from his disciples a profession of who he truly was. Simon Peter spoke up. “You are the Christ,” he said, “the Son of the living God.” Our Lord immediately declared Simon to be blessed and to have been greatly favoured. Simon’s awareness that Jesus was the Messiah and, more than this, that he was the very Son of God was a grace given to him from above. Christ was no ordinary prophet, nor was he simply the greatest of them. He was the long promised Messiah, the one whom God would give to the world to establish his Kingdom. There is no one greater in God’s sight than this Messiah. He is the King of kings who brings the blessings of heaven to the earth. Jesus is indeed the Messiah, but more still, he is God the Son. In our Gospel passage today, our Lord exults that the Father has revealed this to the humble ones, and praises his heavenly Father for revealing the Son to them. “No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” (Luke 10:21‑24)

The constant tendency will be to regard Christ as simply one among many, and his doctrine as simply one among many, carrying little more value than the many others that are on offer in human history. Our passage today is one among several in which our Lord speaks of his uniqueness. He is supremely the Lord and King and no one else shares with him his supreme status. God has handed to him the lordship over everything. “All things have been handed over to me by my Father.” In the intimacy of his circle of disciples, our Lord calmly claimed this universal lordship over all. Then, when he had risen from the dead, he stated explicitly again that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to him. They, his disciples, were to go to the whole world, then, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all he had commanded. The whole world is called by God to accept Jesus as the Lord and King. It is an extraordinary and wonderful thing that the world has a Lord and King, but this fact has to be heard, learnt and accepted. He is the world’s Saviour and the source of its renewal and its hope. I remember watching a television debate many years ago between a Jewish Rabbi and a Protestant theologian. The Rabbi (understandably) attacked her over the Christian teaching that Christ is the only way to God. Sadly, the theologian retreated from the Christian claim, and yet that is exactly what our Lord claims. No one can come to the Father except through me, he told his disciples at the Last Supper. He is the only name by which men can be saved, Peter told the Sanhedrin in the Acts of the Apostles. Just how this is to be understood is a further matter and it certainly does not mean that only Christians can be saved, but it does mean that whoever is saved is saved only through Christ, and Christ is present and active through the Church which he founded on Peter and the Apostles. Our Gospel today speaks of the one Lordship of Christ, and of how it is the Father who reveals this to the men and women of each generation.

Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the one and only Saviour of the world, the only way to the Father. All things have been entrusted to him by the Father. In his hands has been placed all authority in heaven and on earth. As our Lord says in today’s Gospel, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.” Let us accept Christ as our all.

(E.J.Tyler)

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