John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.Such type of clothing and eating, what did it reflect in the Jewish culture?
2 Kings 1:8: “A man wearing a hair cloak, they answered, “and a leather loincloth.” “It was Elijah the Tishbite” the king said.
Mark’s Greek has: “a leather girdle around his loins” – a leather loincloth.
John is the Elijah who was to come.
(The Jerusalem Bible has the alternative shorter version: “John wore a garment of camel-skin.” John was the patron saint of the guild of tailors in Dublin!
The “good news”: like the announcement of a royal wedding! Or of the victory at Marathon.
The summary of the Gospel: Peter: “You are the Christ” – Mark 8:29.
The centurion: “In truth this man was a son of God.”
I am going to send my messenger before you: like John, the Forerunner (Prodromos), we too prepare the way.
We remember the three advents: the coming in Bethlehem, the coming today (each day), the coming in glory. In recognising his coming today we celebrate the reality of the birth bringing the living presence into our deserts and homes, and we are forerunners and prophets of the glory.
John, the son of Zechariah the priest, speaks the Word not in the holy place, the temple, but in the desert, as the people of Israel heard the Word in the desert as they were formed as a people.
Baptism of repentance: a changed, renewed life with a different direction.
In the river Jordan: as the people of Israel entered their new life in the promised land.
Locusts: They can grow to 8cm, 3 inches. The grasshopper family. I have seen them cooked and eaten in South Africa: a good source of protein. (No, I didn’t bring myself to try them!)
First Reading: Isaiah 40: The Book of Consolation. Remember Handel’s setting in “Messiah”: “Comfort ye – comfort ye my people.” We are messengers of good news. “Shout without fear: Here is your God!”
A day can mean a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. So says Saint Peter to us. This profound and magnificent statement reveals to us that every moment of life is here and now before the face of God. All life, yesterday, today and tomorrow, and forever is constantly present to the living Lord of all. What we try to express in the phrase – the eternal now – brings home to us in this moment that every moment of our life is vitally real and important. Even our darkest days, when everything seems null and void, are before God’s face and his grace will bring us through.
All our yesterdays, and the people who inhabited them are alive in God. All our hopes for tomorrow are a promise that the Lord will see fulfilled. And today is the moment of life that we are invited to inhabit with all the kindness and patience that we can muster. Life is a gift not just in general but in each moment and each new day. We are constantly in God’s sight and his gaze is his care for us.
On the cross of Calvary, in his dying breath Jesus gave himself into his Father’s hands. Into your hands I commend my spirit. In this same way we are encouraged to give our loved ones into the hands of God. When we lose those we love in this world, we can turn that experience from one of loss into one of entrusting. Into your hands, O Lord, we entrust those who have now died. So we do not mourn over them like those who have no hope. Those holy souls now live in the light of the Lord, and we can be close to them when we understand that, when we accept it, when we give our loved ones into God’s abiding care.
In our own daily lives, the longer we live, and the older we get we come to realise that only goodness is worth doing. Nothing else has any value. Nothing else is worth the while. What our mothers told us in childhood – be good – is the beginning and the end of all wisdom.
Every word we utter, every thing we do, if it bears the stamp of goodness and kindness and patience, will bear fruit in this world. Anything negative will simply die and rot away. So while we wait in hope for the place where righteousness will be at home Saint Peter tells us again today to live lives without spot or stain so that the Lord will find us at peace.
We are tempted every day to use force and hostile argument to advance our cause and to put this world to rights. In politics and in personal life we stress and strain ourselves to sort things out. The way of goodness does not impress us when ‘things need to be done.’ The simple wisdom of goodness is not understood at all.
It was in training to be a mediator, when my priestly days were done, that I came to fully understand the vital importance of saying positive things and helping others to say the positive things that they really seek. I learned how to translate negative feelings into positive statements, the kind that build up and provide what is needed for any community life.
If the word of God means anything to us it must be to teach us how to speak well to one another, and especially to those who are our opponents. Words are wonderful when well used. Jesus himself is God’s word. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God.
Since God wants no one to be lost and everyone to change his ways, let us live holy and saintly lives today and every day. Hitler boasted of a kingdom that would last a thousand years but only succeeded in destroying millions of lives. His negativity knew no bounds. He was trapped in hatred and anger and he trapped a nation with him.
If the world lasts for a thousand years, or many thousands, it still remains true that doing good today will be our finest hour.
John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.Such type of clothing and eating, what did it reflect in the Jewish culture?
2 Kings 1:8: “A man wearing a hair cloak, they answered, “and a leather loincloth.” “It was Elijah the Tishbite” the king said.
Mark’s Greek has: “a leather girdle around his loins” – a leather loincloth.
John is the Elijah who was to come.
(The Jerusalem Bible has the alternative shorter version: “John wore a garment of camel-skin.” John was the patron saint of the guild of tailors in Dublin!
The “good news”: like the announcement of a royal wedding! Or of the victory at Marathon.
The summary of the Gospel: Peter: “You are the Christ” – Mark 8:29.
The centurion: “In truth this man was a son of God.”
I am going to send my messenger before you: like John, the Forerunner (Prodromos), we too prepare the way.
We remember the three advents: the coming in Bethlehem, the coming today (each day), the coming in glory. In recognising his coming today we celebrate the reality of the birth bringing the living presence into our deserts and homes, and we are forerunners and prophets of the glory.
John, the son of Zechariah the priest, speaks the Word not in the holy place, the temple, but in the desert, as the people of Israel heard the Word in the desert as they were formed as a people.
Baptism of repentance: a changed, renewed life with a different direction.
In the river Jordan: as the people of Israel entered their new life in the promised land.
Locusts: They can grow to 8cm, 3 inches. The grasshopper family. I have seen them cooked and eaten in South Africa: a good source of protein. (No, I didn’t bring myself to try them!)
First Reading: Isaiah 40: The Book of Consolation. Remember Handel’s setting in “Messiah”: “Comfort ye – comfort ye my people.” We are messengers of good news. “Shout without fear: Here is your God!”
A day and a thousand years
2 Peter 3:8-14
A day can mean a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. So says Saint Peter to us. This profound and magnificent statement reveals to us that every moment of life is here and now before the face of God. All life, yesterday, today and tomorrow, and forever is constantly present to the living Lord of all. What we try to express in the phrase – the eternal now – brings home to us in this moment that every moment of our life is vitally real and important. Even our darkest days, when everything seems null and void, are before God’s face and his grace will bring us through.
All our yesterdays, and the people who inhabited them are alive in God. All our hopes for tomorrow are a promise that the Lord will see fulfilled. And today is the moment of life that we are invited to inhabit with all the kindness and patience that we can muster. Life is a gift not just in general but in each moment and each new day. We are constantly in God’s sight and his gaze is his care for us.
On the cross of Calvary, in his dying breath Jesus gave himself into his Father’s hands. Into your hands I commend my spirit. In this same way we are encouraged to give our loved ones into the hands of God. When we lose those we love in this world, we can turn that experience from one of loss into one of entrusting. Into your hands, O Lord, we entrust those who have now died. So we do not mourn over them like those who have no hope. Those holy souls now live in the light of the Lord, and we can be close to them when we understand that, when we accept it, when we give our loved ones into God’s abiding care.
In our own daily lives, the longer we live, and the older we get we come to realise that only goodness is worth doing. Nothing else has any value. Nothing else is worth the while. What our mothers told us in childhood – be good – is the beginning and the end of all wisdom.
Every word we utter, every thing we do, if it bears the stamp of goodness and kindness and patience, will bear fruit in this world. Anything negative will simply die and rot away. So while we wait in hope for the place where righteousness will be at home Saint Peter tells us again today to live lives without spot or stain so that the Lord will find us at peace.
We are tempted every day to use force and hostile argument to advance our cause and to put this world to rights. In politics and in personal life we stress and strain ourselves to sort things out. The way of goodness does not impress us when ‘things need to be done.’ The simple wisdom of goodness is not understood at all.
It was in training to be a mediator, when my priestly days were done, that I came to fully understand the vital importance of saying positive things and helping others to say the positive things that they really seek. I learned how to translate negative feelings into positive statements, the kind that build up and provide what is needed for any community life.
If the word of God means anything to us it must be to teach us how to speak well to one another, and especially to those who are our opponents. Words are wonderful when well used. Jesus himself is God’s word. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God.
Since God wants no one to be lost and everyone to change his ways, let us live holy and saintly lives today and every day. Hitler boasted of a kingdom that would last a thousand years but only succeeded in destroying millions of lives. His negativity knew no bounds. He was trapped in hatred and anger and he trapped a nation with him.
If the world lasts for a thousand years, or many thousands, it still remains true that doing good today will be our finest hour.
Brian Fahy
10 December 2017