Sunday Gospel Comment
Alberic Jacovone OSB
YEAR A SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT - 5.12.04 Is 11,1-10; Rom 15,4-9; Mt 3,1-12 In your life open a way for the Lord The
Baptist & Elijah in Matthew: In Advent, we withdraw from hectic life, to meet the Baptist, who
awakens in us a longing for prayer, vigilance
& eager awaiting: he asks us discover how in our life the Kingdom of
God is close at hand, & requires we produce good fruits, if we are not to be
judged unworthy. In a world which is too busy about so many things, God’s
Kingdom requires that we change our lives, live justly & become
peace-makers. During Advent, let us ask the Holy Spirit to make wise decisions,
promote a culture of peace & hurt with those who hurt. With the Baptist we
meet also Elijah, the great prophet of Old: one parallels, describes and fulfils
the other and both proclaim and bring about God’s Kingdom, the coming of
God’s visitation: in the power of the Spirit, in the fear of the Lord. Today,
stop & ponder: Who is for you right now, a modern Baptist or a Elijah,
to stir in your life, the need to change, to make a difference in families or
faith community, to alleviate loneliness & isolation?... Pray that we may
all know how to hear -yet again- the word of God and keep it in our lives, as
the saints have done!. We used to say that Matthew’s Gospel as the first written, the most
complete & best known. Nowadays however, we are reminded that Mark’s
Gospel was written first and is the most original Gospel. It’s Matthew that
has borrowed over 600 verses from Mark and elaborates them into his own
situation. To understand all this we must start from the basic context of the
destruction of Jerusalem & its Temple by the Roman army in 70AD. It had a devastating & disruptive impact in the religious way of
life of Jews & Christians alike. It affected them psychologically,
spiritually and financially. Mark wrote before that tragic event, with hints
that the end of the world was imminent, Matthew wrote after it, when many
Christians had moved away from Holy Land, & all over in the Middle East. Matthew’s
Message & Mission. Matthew depicts a society that lives away from Jerusalem & Holy
Land; a society where there was no longer a feeling that Jesus’ Second Coming
and Judgment Day were imminent. This had not happened when the Temple fell, now
people had to let go of disappointment & disillusionment & move on in
life. In this new context, Matthew wants to reassure his fellow Christians that
the Lord has indeed fulfilled his saving mission & is continuing to be
present in his Church as He would be until the end of time. Matthew (in Hebrew
‘Mattithyah’), is a name meaning ‘Gift of Yahweh’. His Gospel was not
written by the apostle Matthew who was a Jew, but by a Greek of 2nd generation
Christian, who thought out & compiled it in Greek, some years after 70AD,
away from Palestine, where Jewish & Christian life had suffered immense
disruptions. Perhaps the words ‘according to Matthew’ were added to imply
that he, (that hated tax collector of Capernaum who collaborated with the hated
Romans) represented the many tax-collectors & sinners who were called by
Jesus and became His disciples. One thing is certain: that Matthew gives great
importance to John the Baptist: for him the Baptist comes from a priestly
family, accustomed with rituals of baptism, common prayer & fasting.
Realizing that his clan & his aristocratic class had become corrupt &
arrogant, he withdrew into the wilderness of Qumran to prepare for himself and
for the people who turned to him a way for the Lord. He lashed against the
powerful rulers of his time (‘You Pharisees & Sadducees, brood of
vipers and hypocrites!’). Because Matthew insists that Jesus is ‘among
us’, here & now present in the Church, he is greatly relevant for us
today. ______________________________________ |
