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Sunday Scriptures: Second Sunday of Advent 2016

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On this Second Sunday of Advent, we encounter the figure of John the Baptist in the Gospel reading (Matthew 3:1-12):

John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea
and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said:
A voice of one crying out in the desert,
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.
John wore clothing made of camel’s hair
and had a leather belt around his waist.
His food was locusts and wild honey.
At that time Jerusalem, all Judea,
and the whole region around the Jordan
were going out to him
and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River
as they acknowledged their sins.

When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees
coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers!
Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.
And do not presume to say to yourselves,
‘We have Abraham as our father.’
For I tell you,
God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees.
Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit
will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
I am baptizing you with water, for repentance,
but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I.
I am not worthy to carry his sandals.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fan is in his hand.
He will clear his threshing floor
and gather his wheat into his barn,
but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

John is dripping with not only honey, but with Old Testament motifs. He’s really the last prophet of the Old Covenant, bridging it with the New Covenant (Testament) of Jesus Christ. He is Elijah redux, to be sure, but I want to focus here on a somewhat overlooked section of John’s speech: “And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones” (Matt 3:9). What stones? And what do they mean?

Near the location where John was speaking, Joshua had set up twelve stones by the Jordan River as a memorial of God’s deliverance of the twelve tribes (Joshua 4). The twelve stones reappear in the time of Elijah, who built an altar with them (1 Kings 18:31-32). When one recalls Jesus’ identification of John with Elijah (Mark 9:13), and John’s own adaptation of Elijah’s very dress, this is instructive. As Elijah once did, John is calling Israel’s twelve tribes to repent, and prepare for the coming of Israel’s Messiah.

There is also a wordplay in effect: the Hebrew word for “stone” (eben) sounds like the Hebrew term for “son” (ben). John is essentially saying that God can obtain new children of his own from elsewhere; Israelites who remain unrepentant and faithless can’t rely on their pedigree alone for salvation; they must repent and become obedient to the teaching of the coming Anointed One.

Today’s Catholics also can’t rely on their baptism alone, their membership in the Church (the new Israel), as a “golden ticket” for salvation. One must ratify one’s baptism by remaining in friendship with God, obedient to Jesus Messiah. Advent offers us a wonderful chance to repent if we haven’t always done so. We must prepare for not only Christmas, the feast of Jesus’ first arrival, but the coming Parousia, Christ’s Second Advent, inexorably approaching.

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How Old Was Saint Joseph? Part I

The recent Solemnity of Saint Joseph on March 19 was a welcome feast within Lent – and we’ll have another one next week: the Annunciation. When contemplating Saint Joseph, one of the many interesting unanswered questions about him is this: How old was he? Was he an older man who served as a guardian to the Virgin, or was he younger and more robust? I’ll lay out the two competing views in the next couple of posts. First up: the view that he was older.

The Eastern wing of the Church has traditionally held that Saint Joseph was an older man, who betrothed and married Mary not for the purposes of romance, but protection – to be her legal guardian, as it were. The thinking here is that Mary had always planned on remaining a virgin dedicated to the service of God. Admittedly, this was a relatively rare position to take in Israel in the first century. But there are other examples, even in the same generation: Jesus himself (obviously), Saint Paul, and some of the Essenes, for starters. One could also add the prophetess Anna mentioned by Luke (2:36-38), who, although briefly married in her youth, lived out the rest of her days worshipping in the temple, consecrating herself to the Lord. She ostensibly could have sought remarriage, but didn’t. Mary may have been planning a similar life for herself.

But being an unmarried woman in the first century, especially if one was without extended family members to rely upon, may have been a precarious position to be in. Having a guardian, in the form of an older Saint Joseph, would have been a boon. Mary’s question to the archangel Gabriel, when told she would be the mother of the Messiah (“How can this be, since I am a virgin?” – Lk 1:34) is quite an odd question for an engaged woman to ask. Gabriel has said nothing at this point about the conception of Jesus being miraculous in nature – he does that a few verses later. Odd, that is – unless she was planning on remaining a virgin all along.

The concept of Joseph as an older man also carries explanatory power in other ways: most notably, it explains his absence from the adult ministry of Jesus. The presumption is that he had died by this point. Although the mother of Jesus is mentioned at key points in the ministry of the Lord, Joseph is nowhere to be found. This is felt most acutely at the crucifixion, where Jesus gives the care of his mother into the hands of – not Joseph, but the apostle John – inconceivable if Joseph had been living at the time (Jn 19:26-27). As well, in some strains of this tradition, Joseph is said to have been a widower, whose first wife had died some time before, when he married the Virgin. This may shed some light on who the alleged “brothers and sisters” of Jesus might have been. Certainly, they were not other children of Mary, but they may have been Joseph’s children from his previous marriage.

What do you think? Sound off in the comments box, but don’t forget to stay tuned for the other side of the argument, which I haven’t even presented yet – that Joseph was a much younger man. We’ll tackle that argument in the next post.

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Son of God, Son of Man

The Old Testament readings at daily Mass lately have been taken from the book of Daniel. This was a book that Jesus drew from in important ways to explain his identity. In today’s first reading, we witness Daniel’s incredible night visions:

I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

– Daniel 7:13-14

Many Christians are under the mistaken impression that the term “Son of God” refers to Jesus’ divine nature, while “Son of Man” (which is Jesus’ favorite self-designation in the Gospels) is a reference to his human nature. In reality, the opposite is the case. Now, don’t get me wrong – Jesus is God the Son, the unique, “only-begotten son” of the Father (cf. John 1:18, 3:16). But, in the Old Testament, all Israel was known as God’s “son” (see Hos 11:1), with individual Israelites known as the “sons of God” in an adoptive sense.

The passage from Daniel above speaks of  an enigmatic “one like a son of man”, coming on the clouds of heaven, who approaches the “Ancient of Days” (God the Father) and receives an indestructible kingdom and the service of all people. This passage is quoted by Jesus when he is on trial before the high priest. At issue is his messiahship.

And the high priest stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” But he was silent and made no answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” And Jesus said, “I am; and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” And the high priest tore his garments, and said, “Why do we still need witnesses? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?” And they all condemned him as deserving death.

– Mark 14:60-64

The high priest certainly understood what Jesus meant by referring to himself as “Son of Man”. He is that figure who Daniel had envisioned so long ago – the everlasting King.

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