Faith In Christ Jesus
Introduction
For people who believe, the golden age lies in the future, not in the past, says the third section of the book of Isaiah. Before the exile, the Jews and their prophets looked to the beginnings, to the past, as the golden era from which humankind had declined. Now the prophet turns to the future. For the believer there is a new world to be built as a sign of the new heaven. Life lies in the future.
The building up of this new world began seriously in Christ. His word renews people. Faith in him brings life and healing, something to live for and joy – now and even more so in the future: a new world, a new relationship with God, a new People of God.
1 Reading: Isaiah 65:17-21
Thus says the LORD:
Lo, I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
The things of the past shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happiness
in what I create;
For I create Jerusalem to be a joy
and its people to be a delight;
I will rejoice in Jerusalem
and exult in my people.
No longer shall the sound of weeping be heard there,
or the sound of crying;
No longer shall there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not round out his full lifetime;
He dies a mere youth who reaches but a hundred years,
and he who fails of a hundred shall be thought accursed.
They shall live in the houses they build,
and eat the fruit of the vineyards they plant.
Responsorial Psalm 30:2 and 4, 5-6, 11-12a and 13b
R. (2a) I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.
I will extol you, O LORD, for you drew me clear
and did not let my enemies rejoice over me.
O LORD, you brought me up from the nether world;
you preserved me from among those going down into the pit.
R. I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.
Sing praise to the LORD, you his faithful ones,
and give thanks to his holy name.
For his anger lasts but a moment;
a lifetime, his good will.
At nightfall, weeping enters in,
but with the dawn, rejoicing.
R. I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.
“Hear, O LORD, and have pity on me;
O LORD, be my helper.”
You changed my mourning into dancing;
O LORD, my God, forever will I give you thanks.
R. I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.
Verse before the Gospel: Am 5:14
Seek good and not evil so that you may live,
and the LORD will be with you.
Gospel: John 4:43-54
At that time Jesus left [Samaria] for Galilee.
For Jesus himself testified
that a prophet has no honour in his native place.
When he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him,
since they had seen all he had done in Jerusalem at the feast;
for they themselves had gone to the feast.
Then he returned to Cana in Galilee,
where he had made the water wine.
Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum.
When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea,
he went to him and asked him to come down
and heal his son, who was near death.
Jesus said to him,
“Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
The royal official said to him,
“Sir, come down before my child dies.”
Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.”
The man believed what Jesus said to him and left.
While the man was on his way back,
his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live.
He asked them when he began to recover.
They told him,
“The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon.”
The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him,
“Your son will live,”
and he and his whole household came to believe.
Now this was the second sign Jesus did
when he came to Galilee from Judea.
Commentary
With a very earthbound vision of end-time blessedness, Isaiah today sees a long life as a sign of divine favour. In Jesus’ time it was life itself that was cherished. In today’s Gospel it is the restoration to health of the royal official’s son. It becomes one of the “signs” in John’s “book of signs.”
Before Jesus gives the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke’s Gospel, the question is posed to him, “Who is my neighbour?” The parable gives the answer. The Samaritan passes near the man who had been badly beaten and abused and immediately offers assistance. The question is answered. My neighbour is anyone in need. In today’s Gospel, Jesus proves himself to be a neighbour to a royal official. The story has a familiar ring: it may well be another version of Matthew’s centurion’s son (Matt 8:5-13) or Luke’s servant (Luke 7:1-10). As a royal official, the man is either not a Jew or a Jewish appointee of Roman authority. He is clearly not a believer but becomes one at the story’s conclusion.
If we are selective in our charity, we may be on the track of loving others because they love us. But being willing to extend ourselves to anyone who needs us brings the Christian ideal to life. At one point, Francis of Assisi was incensed when three robber-beggars were hungry and were turned away by the friars because of their poor reputation. He gave the order for them to be found and fed.
Years ago a priest pastor in New York’s lower Manhattan was well known for giving something to everyone who knocked on the door. A friend once chided him, saying that he had been taken advantage of more times than he probably realized. His reply was simple: “God is never going to ask me about that. But he will bring up the one person who was in need and was turned away.”
Blessing
Every year the Church gives us this Lent as an opportunity to become the kind of followers of Christ we were meant to be: courageous, close to God, thinking again of others rather than of ourselves and our own petty interests. Continue to let the Lord renew you, with the blessing of almighty God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen!