When
it's time for me to get to work on a homily, one of the things I
often do is I sit and read through the Scriptures and see if there is
a particular line or two in one of the readings that I can focus on
in order to build my homily off of. I also try to figure out a
specific theme that is common to all of the readings or pertains to
the feast of the day. So I like to find a section from the readings
that helps point to that theme. This week the last several sentences
of the Gospel caught my attention. Jesus tells His disciples that
His death and resurrection are the fulfillment of Scripture. He
says, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still
with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and in
the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled.” He goes on to say.
“Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the
dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of
sins, would be preached in his name.” In other words, God had
intended this from the very beginning. God the Father wanted His Son
to come and die for our sins so that by rising from the dead He would
wipe away our sins. He even had Moses and the prophets write about
it in scripture so that those who believe might better understand
what was to happen.
As
I reflected on this idea that Christ's death and Resurrection where
meant to happen and meant to fulfill Scripture, it reminded me of a
theme from a novel I read several rears ago. The novel was John
Steinbeck's The Grapes
of Wrath. The story
follows a family of tenant farmers from Oklahoma. The Great
Depression and the Dust Bowl left the family homeless and penniless.
So they pack up what few possessions they have in their truck and
head west to California where they've heard there is plenty land and
food and opportunities for everyone.
One
of the themes that Steinbeck uses in this novel is talking about the
inevitability of things. Steinbeck talks a lot about how the
decisions of the rich of the 1920's and 30's eventually led to the
poverty of the tenants and migrants and other poorer workers. I
remember how the book keeps talking again and again about how things
keep happening as if they were meant to happen and that nothing
anybody did could change that. At one point in the story, the truck
breaks down and a couple of men in the family get to work fixing it.
As they get to work, one of them says that he doesn't like doing this
because he always ends up hurting his hand in the process. A few
minutes later his hand slips while loosening something on the engine
and he gets a huge gash on the palm of his hand. Instead of getting
mad about it, the character simply states, “Well, I'm glad it
happened now rather then later”. He then puts some mud on his hand
to act as a compress and gets back to work.
When
I first read that, I was frustrated with what Steinbeck was saying
about humanity. He seemed to me to be denying that we had free will;
as if we could make our own choices or decisions. Someone finally
explained to me later that what Steinbeck was probably trying to say
was that there is a certain inevitability that these hardships had to
happen. All the decisions that had led up to the Great Depression
and all the decisions afterwards the just compounded the problems
simply led to more hardships and suffering for the people. It's not
that we don't have free will to choose or that everything was already
predetermined. It's just that as events unfolded, eventually things
like the Great Depression and poverty and hardship would happen.
Steinbeck
was concerned about showing that the bad choices of the rich
inevitably led to the sufferings of those who were poor. In
contrast, the readings for today focus on the fact that our sinful
actions inevitably led to the sufferings of Christ on the Cross. And
the sufferings of Christ, in turn, inevitably led to the forgiveness
of sins for the rest of us. In the case of Jesus, the suffering
leads to something greater: salvation.
Our
First Reading from Acts talks about how the Sacred Scriptures
foretold that Jesus would suffer and die. St. Peter is the one who
is speaking in this passage. A large group of people, including some
Pharisees, have just witnessed St. Peter and St. John heal a crippled
beggar. St. Peter takes advantage of such an attentive audience and
speaks to them about why this healing was even possible: Jesus
Christ. He ends by encouraging the people to repent of their sins,
which caused this suffering of Christ, so that they may be forgiven.
The
Second Reading is from the First Letter of St. John. Like St. Peter,
St. John talks about the sins of the people. He starts out by
explaining that he is writing this letter so that the people will not
commit sin. St. John’s outlook is a bit more positive I think. He
goes on to say that if anybody does sin, we have an Advocate in Jesus
Christ. Just as an advocate in a court room speaks on behalf of an
accused person, so Jesus speaks on our behalf to the Father. He
expiates, that is, removes our sins. We are to keep God’s word in
our hearts. Then we will show how much we love Him and He loves us.
The
Gospel from Luke gives us the tale end of the “Road to Emmaus”
story. Two disciples encounter Jesus on a road going to the little
town of Emmaus, outside of Jerusalem. The disciples don’t
recognize Him until He sits down to a meal with them and breaks
bread. Then He vanishes. They hurry back to Jerusalem to tell the
others and while they are speaking, Jesus appears. We are told that
the disciples were terrified and think that Jesus is a ghost. They
can’t believe that it is really Him at first. So He shows them
that He is not a ghost and proceeds to explain how this was meant to
happen through Scripture, just as I mentioned before.
Just
as God meant for His Son to die and rise and again and free us from
sin, we are a part of God’s plan as well. Let us strive to grow in
our relationship with God and His Son Jesus. This will bring us to
salvation.
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