Friday, December 16
Luke 23.39-40: Referring to the two thieves who died on either side of Jesus, St. Mark records that “those who were crucified with Him reviled Him” (15:32).
At least they did so for some time. During the course of the afternoon,
however, one of them came to think better of the matter, as he watched our Lord hang there in patience, praying for His enemies. St. Luke describes the scene:
“Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.” But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said to Jesus, “Lord,
remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (23:39–43).
This profoundly moving scene is best considered, I believe, within both its immediate and its wider context in the Gospel of Luke. Three considerations suggest themselves with respect to Luke’s immediate context.
First, this scene with the thieves is the second of three times that Jesus is pronounced innocent. The first pronouncement was made by Pilate and Herod (23:14–15), and the third will issue from the lips of the centurion under the Cross (23:47). This verdict of the second thief, then, is added to the chorus of those who profess Jesus to be executed unjustly (23:41).
Second, the blasphemy by the unrepentant thief is the third and culminating instance in which the crucified Jesus is reviled in identical terms. First, there were the Jewish rulers who challenged Jesus to save Himself if He was the Messiah (23:35). Then the Gentile soldiers defied Him to save Himself, if He was a king (23:37). Finally, the unrepentant thief challenges Jesus to save Himself, adding “and us” (23:39).
We observe that the same verb, “save” or sozein, is used in all three
instances. The thief ’s reviling of the Lord thus forms a climax to the theme.
This sequence prepares for its foil, the scene’s culminating irony, in which only one man, the “good thief,” perceives the true path to salvation.
He boldly grasps the salvific meaning of Jesus’ death. He is the “good thief,” indeed. In his final and defining act of theft, as it were, he extends his soul and clutches hold of eternal life.
Third, the encounter with the two thieves immediately precedes the death of Jesus, so that Jesus’ words to the second thief, promising to meet him that day in Paradise, are His last recorded words to another human being during His earthly life. The good thief represents the repentant Church gathered at the Cross, and the words that he hears are the last thing that Jesus has to say to His people on earth.
With regard to the wider context of Luke’s Gospel, there are two points particularly worthy of note in this story of the thieves. First, in drawing a contrast between the two men, Luke follows a pattern of antithesis that he has employed throughout his entire narrative. For instance, it is Luke who immediately opposes the Beatitudes with the Woes (6:20–26). It is Luke who elaborates in detail the differences between the Pharisee and the woman who came into his house (7:44–47).
It is Luke, likewise, who contrasts two men who went up to the temple to pray (18:9–14), the two sons of the same father (15:27–32), the rich man and the pauper (16:19–22), the faithful and unfaithful servants (12:35–39), the leper and his nine companions (17:17), the rich donors and the poor widow (21:1–2). Luke’s opposition between the two thieves, then, is the climax in a lengthy series of contrasts.
Second, Luke’s good thief is the final example of individuals who confess their guilt in the hope of obtaining divine mercy. Earlier instances include the Publican in the Temple (18:13), the Prodigal Son (15:21), and the repentant woman (7:36–50). In all of these examples, Luke’s narrative resonates with the Pauline emphasis on justification by faith. While in each of these examples the characters come to God with no justifying works of their own, this note is especially obvious in the thief on the cross, who turns to Jesus for mercy with literally no time left to do anything except repent and die.
Finally, this thief seems to ask for so very little. Sensing that our Lord is about to go to some destiny different from his own, he modestly pleads, “Remember me.” Ah, but “the grace shown is more abundant than the request made,” commented St. Ambrose.
Saturday, December 17
Luke 23.50-56: Because Jesus could not rise from the grave unless He had been buried, an explicit insistence on His burial may be noted in the Church’s
earliest proclamation. We even find the burial of Jesus as an element in the Creed itself.
Paul himself, who knew its importance from the earlier tradition (1 Corinthians 15:4), included it in his own preaching (Acts 13:29) and writing (Romans 6:4). All the canonical Gospels, moreover, agree that Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Sanhedrin.
The burial of Jesus is elaborately described. Joseph, precisely because he “waited for the kingdom of God,” intended to be buried, not in Ramathaim, his native village, but in Jerusalem itself. The grand prophecies of messianic restoration, after all, especially those of Ezekiel and Zechariah, were centered in Jerusalem.
Accordingly, in the holy city, Joseph had purchased for himself a special burial vault that was situated, says John (18:41–42), in a garden not far from where Jesus had died. According to Matthew and Mark, this tomb was carved out of solid rock. Luke and John both mention that it was brand new.
This elaborate burial arrangement suggests that Joseph of Arimathea was a man of some means. Indeed, Matthew (27:57) explicitly records that he was rich. This detail is, furthermore, of theological significance, because God’s Suffering Servant, according to prophecy, was to be buried “with the rich” (Isaiah 53:9).
Luke’s account of the burial of Jesus features certain parallels with his infancy narrative; the two stories, each near either end of his Gospel, serve as “book ends” to the whole.
First, there is a “Joseph” is prominent in each story. Second, in each account
the naked, helpless body of Jesus is decently wrapped (2:7, 12; 23:53).
Third, Luke’s portrayal of Joseph of Arimathea is strikingly similar to his description of aged Simeon, who welcomed the newborn Jesus on his first visit to the temple (2:25). To highlight this parallel, Luke introduces both stories begin with an identical “and behold” (kai idou). Both men, too, are described as “just” (dikaios), and each is said to be “waiting.” Simeon is “waiting for the Consolation of Israel,” and Joseph is “waiting for the Kingdom of God.” This complex set of parallels establishes a “literary inclusion” in the Lukan structure.
In all of the Gospels, Joseph’s actions are contrasted with those of the other members of the Sanhedrin. Whereas the latter blindfolded, mocked, and abused Jesus, Joseph treated even his dead body with dignity and respect. Although executed criminals were often buried in a common grave, or even left as carrion for wild beasts, Joseph carefully placed the body of Jesus in a special tomb, a place befitting the dignity of the coming Resurrection.
Sunday, December 18
Luke 1.57-80: We come now to the birth of John the Baptist, charged forever with the task of preparing mankind to receive the Messiah in repentance. As we learned in the opening scene in the Gospel of Luke, John was a Jewish priest by inheritance and blood. His mother was from the tribe of Levi, and of his father we read that he was a priest of “the division of Abijah.” He was the heir of a great spiritual legacy, and very early in life he began to assimilate that inheritance.
How early? According to Luke he was in his sixth month of gestation. Even at that age, however, he had already assimilated enough of his religious inheritance that he leaped in his mother’s womb at the sound of Mary’s voice and the approach of the Son of God she carried.
That is to say, even three months before he was born, and without the slightest ability to reflect critically on his existence, he was already a believer. He already had faith, a faith proportionate to his age and condition. He was in possession of an infant’s faith, the only kind of faith of which he was capable. This is why, eight days after his birth, he was circumcised as a member of God’s people.
This infant faith has been essential to the history of the Christian Church, because it is a fact that the great majority of Christians did not come to the Christian faith as adults, but as infants and children. We baptize the infant members of the Church for exactly the same reason that John the Baptist was circumcised eight days after his birth. That is to say, such children are already believers, just as John the Baptist was a believer.
In the case of John the Baptist, moreover, this faith began before he was born. His ears could already hear the prayers of his mother and father. He could already listen to the hymns they sang at home and in the temple. The sounds of their voices were already giving shape to his soul. In proportion to his tiny abilities, his culture was already taking shape. He was already assuming his place in history.
Growing up in the community of faith, John was never shaky about who he was. The lines of his identity were firmly in place: he had what the Greeks called “character.” He was severely tried over the course of his life, but he seems never to have had an identity crisis. He appears in the Gospels as a man of unusual self-confidence—enough self-confidence to call his whole generation to repentance! He was not afraid of the religious authorities in Judaism, and he was not the least intimidated by the political authorities that would eventually take his life.
He held his identity as a matter of memory, memory earlier than his ability to recall critically. This memory, for John, was primitive, more aboriginal than mere recollection. The man that finally placed his neck on the block for his beheading is the same person as the child that was awakened by the voice of the Virgin Mary as he nestled in his mother’s womb. Through all the vicissitudes of his life, there was a personal continuity in John the Baptist. John stands forever astride the course of history, calling all men to receive the Messiah in repentance.
Monday, December 19
Matthew 24.1-14: In all three Synoptics Jesus’ eschatological discourse is the link between the public teaching of Jesus, culminating in his repeated conflicts with the Jewish authorities, and the account of his Passion. Indeed, it was Jesus’ prophecy of the destruction of the Temple that provided the accusations brought forth at His trial before the Sanhedrin, and it was the subject of the jeers that his enemies hurled at him as he hung on the cross. Moreover, the position occupied by our Lord’s prophecy here indicates the relationship between the death of Jesus and the downfall of Jerusalem. We observe that this prophecy follows immediately on Jesus’ lament over the holy city.
This discourse forms a sort of last testimony of Jesus, in which the Church is provided with a final injunction and moral exhortation. It serves the purpose of instructing the Christian Church how to live during the period (literally “eon” in Greek) that will last until the Lord’s second coming.
This conduct will be especially marked by vigilance, so that believers may not be “deceived.” They will suffer persecution, Jesus foretells, and he goes on to make two points with respect to this persecution. First, they must not lose heart, and second, it does not mean that the end is near. They must persevere to the end.
1 Thessalonians 2:1-12: Paul continues to speak of his own conscience in the Holy Spirit–“… we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, who tests our hearts. . . . God is witness” (verses 4-5). Paul’s behavior was, in fact, being challenged by his opponents. He was being likened to other itinerant preachers who made their living by spreading new and interesting ideas.
Such itinerant preachers were much common in the ancient world. One such group was the cynics, criticized by Dio Chrysostom (AD 40-112, and therefore somewhat contemporary with Paul) for their “error, impurity, and deception.” All of these charges were directed at Paul himself (verses 3-6). Dio Chrysostom goes on to say that a true philosopher should be “gentle as a nurse.” This is exactly how Paul describes himself (verse 7). In addition, Paul appeals to the memory of the Thessalonians themselves with respect to his recent ministry in their city (verses 1,2,5,9,10).
The Thessalonians could be witness of Paul only up to a point, however. The real Paul they could not see. Inside Paul was the plerophoria effected by the Holy Spirit. This was his “complete assurance,” known only to God, so it is to God Himself that Paul appealed as the Judge of his conscience, no matter what others might think of him.
The idea of living under God’s scrutiny was important to Paul’s psychology. He was persuaded that a man was not defiled by what entered him from without, but only by what came from inside, from the heart (cf. Mark 7:14-23). The Apostle rather frequently appeals to God’s inner witnessing (2 Corinthians 1:23; Romans 1:9). His mentality seems dominated by the awareness of God’s inner judgment over him.
Tuesday, December 20
Matthew 24.15-28: Matthew, unlike Mark and Luke, explicitly sends the reader to Daniel in order to explain this reference to the Abomination of Desolation. In Daniel the Hebrew expression for Abomination of Desolation is hashuqqus meshomem, appears to be a parody of the name that refers to Zeus, ba‘al shamayim, “lord of heaven.”
Matthew repeats Mark’s parenthetical note, “let the reader understand.” This exhortation, which clearly comes from the evangelists and not from Jesus, perhaps calls attention to the plan of the Roman emperor Caligula to erect a statue of himself in the Temple in A.D. 40. This proposed desecration of the holy place would have repeated what had occurred two centuries earlier under Antiochus IV Epiphanes. This seems to be what both Mark and Matthew had in mind.
The function of such prophecy is not to convey information, but to encourage vigilance. The first particular of the exhortation is flight to the mountains (verse 16), which is exactly what the Maccabees did during the crisis of 167 B.C. Their flight, we recall, was not a surrender. It provided, rather, the opportunity to organize and consolidate their resistance to the enemy. Likewise, all Christian flight is intended as a means of carrying on the battle. Sometimes, in order to be victorious, there is a need for a strategic withdrawal for the purpose of achieving later advantage.
1 Thessalonians 2:13-20: Paul did not preach his own word (verse 13). He contended, in fact, that the Apostles themselves were relatively unimportant (1 Corinthians 3:5-9), and he insisted that the Gospel was not his to change (Galatians 1:6-9).
The Gospel means “good news,” but not “news” in the same way that the newspaper gives news. It does not simply give a “news flash” about God. On the contrary, the Gospel does something in those that receive it in faith (verse 13; Romans 1:16; Ephesians 6:17; 1 Peter 1:23-25; Hebrews 4:13; John 17:17).
In describing the Gospel as “God’s Word,” Paul and the other New Testament writers were adapting the expression “the Word of the Lord” from Israel’s prophets. Of the 241 times that this expression appears in the Hebrew Bible, it refers to prophetic oracles 221 times.
Like the prophetic oracles that were called “the Word of the Lord,” the Gospel was not preached in order to convey an idea but to get results (1 Kings 17:1; Deuteronomy 8:3; Isaiah 55:10-11), to affect history (Jeremiah 5:14; 23:29; Ezekiel 11:13). God’s Word proclaimed in the new dispensation of grace should not be weaker than God’s word spoken in the Old Testament. Hence, Paul thought it important to distinguish man’s word from God’s.
Wednesday, December 21
Matthew 24.29-35: The coming destruction of Jerusalem, foretold by Jesus, is seen by Matthew to be both a symbol and a first stage, as it were, of the final times of the world (as in the very last verse of Matthew’s Gospel, 28:20), when Jesus will return in glory to judge. The sounding of the trumpet and the dispatching of the gathering angels (verse 31) were standard images of the world’s last judgment (Matthew 13:41,49), and we meet them in the New Testament’s earliest book (First Thessalonians 4:16). The coming judgment of the world will be the theme of the last part of Matthew’s next chapter (25:31-46).
These verses, a very precise prophecy about a specific and definitive event, give the lie to any attempt to make Jesus a calm, benign, harmless teacher of general religious theory. This is a prophecy of His return to earth at the end of time, and the Christian Church has always read it that way.
1 Thessalonians 3.1-13: The two verbs “strengthen” and “encourage” (sterixsai, parakalesai) (verse 2) are used fairly often in the New Testament to describe what Christians are supposed to do for one another. Indeed, in the pastoral work of the early Christians, these are practically technical expressions for matters of duty. In addition to being used separately, they sometimes appear together in the writings of the two great missionaries who traveled together, Paul and Luke (Romans 1:11; 2 Thessalonians 2:17; Acts 14:22; 15:32).
Probably we should not try to find a distinction between the two verbs, as they are employed in such contexts. Their union is more likely a hendiadys, a way of saying something twice (as in “will and testament”). Strength and encouragement are the same thing, and it is very necessary to Christians (Luke 22:32; Revelation 3:2).
In the present text Paul relates this “strengthening” to faith (as also in Romans 1:11), because he is aware that our faith is always weak. To gain some idea of how little faith we have, it is useful to recall that faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain. In any case, it is imperative to strengthen the faith of others by our own faith. John Calvin remarked on this verse: “The fellowship that ought to exist among the saints and the members of Christ surely extends to this point, that the faith of the one proves the consolation of the other.”
According to Paul’s thought here, the Christian who encourages and strengthens other Christians is God’s “fellow laborer,” because he is doing God’s work This also implies, of course, that the Christian who discourages or weakens the faith of other Christians is really working against God.
We may list any number of ways by which we Christians encourage and strengthen one another: a kindly disposition, magnanimity, generosity, genuine and sympathetic interest in the lives of others, good example, a willingness to listen to others when they tell us their troubles. Likewise, there are all sorts of ways to discourage and weaken the faith of others: bad example, excessive criticism and pickiness, unwarranted challenging of the good will and intention of others, being mean minded and selfish.
Thursday, December 22
1 Thessalonians 4.1-18: Paul prays that the Thessalonians will abound more and more (verses 1-2). This idea of growth is frequent in Paul, for whom the Christian condition of justification is less a “state” than the dynamic possibility of growth in the Holy Spirit. The word “more” (mallon) appears seven times in Romans, eight times in 1 Corinthians, twice in 2 Corinthians, five times in Philippians, once each in Galatians, Ephesians, 1 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and twice in the tiny letter to Philemon.
This frequency of a simple adverb suggests something of how Paul experienced the life in Christ. It had no limits, neither in knowledge nor in love. He does not, therefore, attempt to “define” a disciple of Christ, because to “define” means to “determine the limits of.” Belonging to Christ is limitless, because Christ Himself is limitless.
For this reason St. John Chrysostom comments on this verse, comparing the soul to fertile soil: “For as the earth ought to bear not only what is so upon it, so too the soul ought not to stop at those things that have been inculcated, but to go beyond them.”
The image of the seed sown on the earth is a famous one, of course. The Lord’s parable of the sower is only one of its uses.
The early Christian parishes had a strong sense of identity based on a cautious, largely negative attitude towards the society in which they lived. They realized that what Jesus meant was radically opposed to what the world stood for, and that the call to holiness, an essential feature of the life in Christ, required from them a radical break with their pagan past. Often enough this also meant, in practice, a break with their pagan friends (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).
Thus, the local Christians congregations served as communities of support, because believers could find with one another a very real solidarity in those convictions that separated them from other people. We find in early Christian literature ample evidence these Christians felt a great gulf between “them” and “us.” The New Testament and other primitive Christian literature leave no doubt that the specifics of Christian existence were founded on a position of contrast with, and opposition to, the “world.”
Indeed, today’s reading uses a technical expression to designate non-Christians, hoi exso, “those outside” (verse 12). This was evidently a common term among the early believers (1 Corinthians 5:12-13; Colossians 4:5; Mark 4:11; cf. also Titus 2:7-8; 1 Timothy 3:7).
Christians at that period were enormously aware of their minority status among non-Christians, and they were careful how they impressed those non-Christians (1 Peter 2:12; 1 Corinthians 10:32-33; Matthew 5:16).
The picture that emerges of the Christian parishes during that early period is one of communities of sobriety, hard work, and a closely knit bond of fraternal love (philadelphia). In today’s reading Paul stresses minding one’s own business, and doing one’s own job becomingly and unobtrusively. There is no question of evangelizing one’s neighbor’s by aggressive approach or slick advertising. In the words of Tertullian, Non magna loquimur, sed vivimus—“We don’t talk big, but we live.”
Friday, December 23
Matthew 24.45-58: This image of the household in danger introduces the parable distinguishing the wise, good, and loyal servant from the lazy, dissolute, and wicked one (verses 45-51). This is the first of three consecutive stories in which the passage of time is integral to the testing of God’s servants. The next two are the parables of the ten virgins (25:1-13) and the talents entrusted to the three servants (25:14-30).Although Matthew encapsulates the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world into a consistent set of images, it would be wrong to interpret too literally the word “immediately” in verse 29. These next three parables, in fact, suggest that the end of the world may still be some way off.
In this first parable Jesus describes the righteous servant as “faithful and wise” (verse 45). In the present context “faithful” (pistos) probably bears the meaning of “loyal” rather than “believing.” Several times St. Paul uses this very adjective to describe the ideal pastor, missionary, or Christian leader (1 Corinthians 4:1-12; Ephesians 6:21; Colossians 1:7; Titus 1:9). In the present text, we observe that the vocation of this servant is to feed the others in the household (verse 46).
He is also called phronimos, often translated as “prudent” or “wise,” but perhaps better rendered here as “thoughtful” or “reflective.” It is the same adjective used to describe five of the maidens in the next parable (25:2,4,8,9). Matthew also uses it to describe the man who builds his house on a rock foundation (7:24). It is the characteristic that Christians are to share with snakes! (10:16)
1 Thessalonians 5.1-28: Paul deals with, among other subjects, the theme of vigilance. This was not a theme peculiar to Paul, but part of the common catechetical inheritance of the Church, going back to Jesus Himself (Mark 13:33-37). Being common, it is found in other New Testament writers as well (1 Peter 5:8; Revelation 3:2-3). When Paul speaks on this subject, therefore, he is saying something Christians generally expected him to say (cf. 1 Corinthians 16:13; Colossians 3:2).
The life in Christ includes a vigilant, heightened consciousness, a stimulated awareness, a certain kind of mindfulness, clear and sharp thinking, and intelligent questioning. This vigilance will have some trouble with the general sense of stupor common in contemporary culture, where piped-in music prevents a person from hearing his own thoughts, and great efforts are made in the advertising world to prevent us from seeing the complications of things. Every single project—from the offering of new deodorant on the market to the construction of a new bridge or road—involves an underlying philosophy and a set of metaphysical presuppositions. The alert mind will search out these things, for the simple reason that its adversary, the devil, goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.