(For International Districts)
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle A, Year II)
Community Word: True Christian disciples rise up and search diligently for Jesus, the Truth and the Light.
Theme: True Christian disciples boldly testify to Jesus, the Son of God.
Promise: “You are my servant, through whom I show my glory.” (Is 49:3)
Reflection:
There are at least three significant points in this Gospel passage for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time that give us a picture of who Jesus was at the time of his baptism by John the Baptist, his true identity and what he will be from then on. To know the background of Jesus is fairly important in our understanding of our faith since it is only in knowing who Jesus was and is that we can truly believe and love him and appreciate our nature as “children of God.” “And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” (1 Jn 3:1)
The first point we’d like to make is that when Jesus appeared before John the Baptist at the Jordan River and John cried out: “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (v.29). Here we see a progression that links all the three points in this passage. Acknowledged as the last of the great prophets, the title used by John in calling Jesus as the Lamb of God was prophetic in a sense because it defines the role of Jesus in the redemption of the world. The question that some may raise is how come John called Jesus to be the Lamb of God if he himself “did not know him” (v.31). Was John thinking of the practice in those days when a lamb was sacrificed each morning and every evening at the Temple for the sins of the people? Or was John thinking of Jesus as the Passover Lamb the blood of which delivered the Israelites in Egypt from death and perhaps this was the same thought that ran through the mind of Paul who wrote: “for Christ, our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:7). To be called the Lamb of God was indeed a tremendous title because of the way the Jews associate the lamb with the practice of their faith.
It would also have been impossible for John not to know Jesus (v.31) because they were blood relations. What John meant, however, was not that he didn’t know who Jesus was but he didn’t know what Jesus was and it was only at that moment when John saw and realized who Jesus really was. And this brings us to the second point of this passage. Indeed John didn’t know who Jesus was but at that moment when he saw Jesus appear at the River Jordan, the Holy Spirit had provided him with the thought as to the real identity of Jesus. And here we see for the first time the appearance of the Holy Spirit in the life of John and Jesus in the form of a dove. The Jews refer to the Holy Spirit as the ‘ruah’ which means wind. And to the Jews the Spirit of God means power and life which is beyond human comprehension and even the Jews believed then that the coming of the Spirit was the coming of God. Even the great prophets defer to the Spirit as coming from God: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings”(Is 61:1).
Many of us may have gone through what is called spasmodic experiences which come with dazzling illumination in the Life in the Spirit Seminar, but these moments come and go. When John said in (v.32) that he saw the Spirit remain on him, it meant that the Spirit took up residence in Jesus which also means that the power of God was and has always been in and with Jesus from the beginning of time.
The third point in this Gospel passage was the use of the word baptize in verse 33 when John said Jesus will baptize men with the Holy Spirit. Again, what John meant was that Jesus alone can bring the Spirit of God to us that when we are baptized in the Holy Spirit, our lives are immersed and filled with the Spirit who takes possession of our nature. Hence, this indwelling of the Holy Spirit should illumine, strengthen and purify our lives for it is only by the power of the Spirit that we can do things beyond our human comprehension: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”(Acts 1:8).
As with John, our primary task is to testify not for our own self but to stand as witness for Jesus Christ. We are not to draw attention to our own person but we are to point others to Christ. With the uncertainties and upheavals in the environment we are in, the people in the world today as with the Jews in the time of John are looking for someone to provide them security in an unsecure world. Our role as Christian disciples is to point them to Christ and to show that he is the only one who can give us peace and security. And we can only do this by the power of the Holy Spirit who makes Christ known to us through the gift of faith because it would be difficult to lead others to know Christ if we have not known him first. God fills us with his Spirit so that we may comprehend the great mystery and plan of God to unite all things in his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph 1:10). As the mission of John was to be the herald of Christ, we too are being mobilized to follow after John and point others to Christ.
In this Year of the Laity, let us not forget that we are being called to proclaim the Gospel of Christ to the ends of the earth in pursuit of the New Evangelization program which has been developed by our church to renew the faith of baptized Christians who have strayed away from the practice of their Catholic faith. The Catholic Church today is under attack from all sides not only from its traditional foes – the agnostics, atheists, skeptics and cults – but even from within as what the Church faced recently with the passage of the RH Law in the Philippines when legislators who are themselves baptized Catholics voted for the passage of the bill.
Indeed, there never was a time in the history of the only Christian nation in Asia when the Name of Jesus has been desecrated as today and it now rests upon our shoulders as disciples of Christ to come to the defense of not only our Christian Catholic faith but of Christ himself.
Reflection Questions:
1. While living as a Christian, in what way do you show to others who Jesus is in your life through your words and actions?
2. Recall an instance when you defended your Christian faith and Catholic religion? What did this experience teach you?
This Week’s Daily Mass Reading Guide:
January 19, 2013 (Sun) Is 49;3,5-6/ Ps 40:2,4,7-10/ 1Cor 1:1-3/ Jn1: 29-34
January 20, 2013 (Mon) 1Sm 15:16-23/Ps 50:8,9,16,17,21,23/Mk 2:18-22
January 21, 2013 (Tues) 1Sm 16:1-13/Ps 89:20,21,22,27,28/Mk 2:23-28
January 22, 2013 (Wed) 1Sm 17:32,33,37,40-51/Ps 114:1,2,9,10/Mk 3:1-6
January 23, 2013 (Thur) 1Sm 18:6-9,19,:1-7/Ps 56:2,3,9,10,12,13,14/Mk 3:7-12
January 24, 2013 (Fri) 1Sm 24:3-21/Ps 57:2,3,4,6,11/Mk 3:13-19
January 25, 2013 (Sat) Acts 22:3-16 orActs 9:1-22/Ps 117:1,2/Mk 16:15-18
“Ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of Christ. Read your Bible daily!”
Please download in PDF format.
