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Commentary on John 6:16-21

We have today an epilogue to the story of the multiplication of the loaves for the 5,000. Jesus had fled to the mountains to avoid the misdirected enthusiasm of the crowd.  Before that (according to Mark’s version of this story), Jesus had packed the disciples off into their boats.  Very possibly they were much more ready to receive the adulation of the crowd.  They must have been quite excited to have been so closely linked with the sensational act which Jesus had just done and which had stirred up the excitement of the crowd.

The story that follows is much more than a mere account of a storm at sea.  There is a good deal of symbolism:

It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.

They might have been feeling quite disgruntled at being sent off so unceremoniously when things seem to be going so well for their Master—and of course, them.  Life without Jesus is a kind of darkness.

As they crossed:

The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing.

The strong wind and the rough sea can also be seen as a symbol of the storms that can surround the Church and any Christian community.  The boat with the little group inside represents a Christian community surrounded by a hostile sea which can be very threatening at times. It still happens.

Suddenly they see:

…Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat…

Their first reaction is fear, until they hear his comforting words:

It is I; do not be afraid.

“It is I” is not mere self-identification, like “It’s only me.” Here it is translated “I AM” (Greek ego eimi), reminiscent of the words spoken by God to Moses from the burning bush. It is a phrase regularly on the lips of Jesus in John’s Gospel, and it identifies Jesus as one with God.

The words “do not be afraid” occur regularly from the lips of Jesus and in other parts of the Scriptures as well.  With Jesus close by, there is no need to be afraid.  As the First Letter of John tells us:

…perfect love [agape] casts out fear… (1 John 4:18)

The Apostles wanted to take Jesus into the boat with them, but all of a sudden they found they had reached the shore and safety—some see a miracle in this.  On the other hand, in their fear the shore seemed far away.  With Jesus close by they find themselves there in no time.  The storm was over, their fears having evaporated with the presence of Jesus.  The peace that only Jesus can give has come.

We, too, can have the same experience.

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Commentary on Acts 3:1-10

Today we see the first healing performed by Peter and John. By this, they show that the work of Jesus is continuing in them. The fact that two of them are involved in the healing also indicates that the work of Jesus is being done, not so much by individuals (although that may happen), but by the community which he left to carry on his mission.

Our reading is the beginning of a longer passage with a dramatic public healing which results in a large group of people gathering to hear Peter make a gospel proclamation. Some Sadducees, taking exception to what is being said about the resurrection of Jesus (the Sadducees denied any life after death), will have Peter and John (and apparently the cured man as well) arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin. There is also the matter of Peter and John teaching publicly in the Temple—something they had no authority to do. When Peter refuses to back down on the basis that he was speaking in a prophetic role, he and John should have been jailed. But because of healing the man who was well-known as “lame from birth”—a healing witnessed by many—the authorities retreated with just a warning.

We are told that Peter and John were on their way into the Temple in Jerusalem for the afternoon prayers. The three stated times of prayer for Judaism were midmorning (the third hour or 9 am), the time of the evening sacrifice (the ninth hour, 3 pm), and sunset. At this early stage in the Church’s life, the disciples maintained many of their former Jewish customs and practices. They did not see themselves as breaking away from their past, still less setting up a new religion.

Peter and John are among the most prominent of the Apostles. Together with John’s brother, James, they formed an inner circle with Jesus (attending the healing of the daughter of Jairus, witnessing the Transfiguration, brought along to give support to Jesus during his agony in the garden). Peter and John will be arrested together, and later we will see them evangelising in Samaria.

For them, Jesus was the continuation and the fulfilment of God’s promises to his people. Jesus was the Messiah long awaited by the Jewish people. Later, we will see how they began to realise that Jesus had come, not just for the Jews, but for people everywhere.

As Peter and John enter the Temple, they see this man who was unable to walk being carried in by friends. It appears that they brought him every day so that he could sit at the “Beautiful Gate” and beg for alms from passers-by. This gate was the favourite entrance to the Temple court. It was probably the bronze-sheathed gate elsewhere called the Nicanor Gate. It seems to have led from the Court of the Gentiles (open to everyone) to the Court of the Women, located on the east wall of the Temple building.

When the man saw Peter and John, he begged them for money. Peter and John both fixed their gaze on the man (as Jesus used to do) and Peter said:

I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.

And Peter raised him to his feet (a symbol of resurrection and new life, also seen in Gospel healings). Again, we note that the healing is done not by Peter himself, but in the name of Jesus. Jesus himself only healed in his own name.

The man gingerly tries out his ‘new’ legs, and is next seen bounding his way into the Temple, giving praise and thanks to God for his healing. The onlookers, many of whom were familiar with the man, were struck speechless by what they saw. The miracle has a dramatic impact: it symbolises the saving power of Christ and leads the now healed man to enter the Temple, where he hears Peter’s proclamation of salvation through Jesus.

The story clearly indicates that the power of Jesus has, as promised, been transferred to his followers.

Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. (John 14:12)

This man who was healed can also be viewed, as in similar Gospel stories, as symbolic of each one of us. We are all permanently in need of God’s help, and we stumble in our efforts to follow him. But, once healed, we immediately join him on his Way.

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Commentary on Revelation 4:1-11

Chapters 4-22 of Revelation (Apocalypse) contain the Prophetic Visions. After the letters to the seven churches, the rest of Revelation is devoted to a series of prophetic visions expressed in very symbolic language and images. In chapters 4-16, God entrusts the future of the world to the Lamb. These chapters speak of events that will precede the “Great Day” (Rev 6:17), when the Lord comes at the end to judge and take to himself all those who belong to him and his Kingdom.

Today, the author has a prophetic vision of God’s throne, and this will widen to embrace the whole universe. We read:

…and there in heaven a door stood open!

This is a metaphor for the entrance to heaven, which must be open for revelation from God or for a heavenly ascent to his presence. The “first voice” heard speaking is that of Christ himself.

John hears a summons:

Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.

“Come up here” is a call similar to that which Moses received to go up Mount Sinai and converse with Yahweh.He is then “in the Spirit”, i.e. possessed by the Spirit in a kind of mystic experience. In this, he is given a vision of God ruling from his throne in heaven, an image familiar in the Old Testament.

God, seated on this throne, is described as being like:

…jasper stone [diamond] and carnelian [ruby] and around the throne is a rainbow that looks like an emerald.

John is careful not to describe God in any human-like terms, but only as an overwhelming impression of light. The images are derived very much from Ezekiel (chaps 1 and 10), who liked to use apocalyptic language, and also Isaiah (chap 6).

Surrounding God’s throne are 24 lesser thrones on which sit 24 elders, wearing white robes and golden crowns. These have the priestly role of praising and worshipping God, and also of offering the prayers of the faithful. Their number may suggest the 24 priestly classes or may represent the 12 patriarchs of Israel and the 12 Apostles, the foundation stones of the New Israel. That they are sitting on thrones indicates their role as judges of the ‘new Israel’, and their crowns indicate a share in God’s power. Their white robes indicate their total identity with God and freedom from any taint of sin.

It is to be noted that the thrones of the elders make the outer ring of the heavenly court, and in the New Jerusalem which comes down from heaven (chap 21), we are told that the outer walls are composed of twelve foundation stones of Apostles and twelve gates which are the twelve tribes of Israel.

From the throne come flashes of lightning and peals of thunder, traditional symbols of theophanies, when God becomes somehow visibly present—for instance, as on Mount Sinai. They are symbolic of God’s overwhelming power and majesty. In Revelation, thunder and lightning always mark an important event connected with the heavenly temple.

…in front of the throne burn seven flaming torches, which are the seven spirits of God, and in front of the throne there is something like a sea of glass, like crystal.

The “seven torches” (or ‘lamps’ in some translations) of the seven Spirits of God are the seven “angels of the presence”—God’s special messengers mentioned in the Old Testament and all through Revelation (‘angel’ means ‘messenger’).

The “sea of glass” may refer to the “upper waters” mentioned by Genesis in the creation story or it may be borrowed from Ezekiel. It is also possible that it refers to a heavenly counterpart of a large basin in the Jerusalem Temple known as the “Sea”. Other features of the temple in heaven are the lamps, the altar, the altar of incense, and the ark of the covenant—all features of the Temple in Jerusalem (at this time already destroyed).

Inside the outer circle of 24 thrones there are four more thrones immediately around God’s throne. These are occupied by:

…four living creatures, full of eyes in front and back: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with a face like a human, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle.

Again the imagery is from Ezekiel, where these creatures are responsible for governing the physical world. That they number four is a symbol of the whole universe: north, south, east and west. The animals chosen—lion, bull, human, and eagle—suggest all that is most noble, strong, wise and swift in creation. We are also familiar with them as symbols of the four Evangelists, but that is an idea that dates later on from Irenaeus, one of the Fathers of the Church.

Each of the creatures has six wings and are “full of eyes in front and back”. They are the eyes and ears of the God who knows and provides for everything. Night and day they sing God’s praise and glory in words that we have borrowed for our Eucharist liturgies:

Holy, holy, holy,
the Lord God the Almighty,
who was and is and is to come.

And, as the four creatures sing the praises of God, the 24 elders also prostrate themselves and throw down their crowns before him, acknowledging that the power given them to rule over others comes ultimately from God himself. And they sing:

You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.

Obviously, when we read a passage like this we are not to imagine that it in any remotely literal way corresponds to the reality of God. It is simply the use of language and images to express the inexpressible. We find similar language in mystics like John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila. It is important for us now and again to be reminded of the utter transcendence of God.

Too often we reduce God to human terms, and we can even identify the humanity of Christ with his divinity. But Jesus in his human nature gives us only the faintest idea of the reality of God in himself. What Jesus gives us in the Gospel is of priceless value because it tells us truths about God we might never have found for ourselves, but what Jesus revealed to us was only a faint image of the whole God.

That is why when we have some experience in praying, we find that the only thing we can do is to sit silent and motionless in a Presence that takes over our lives completely. Rather than trying to manipulate God to our own desires, we surrender to Him completely. That is, “We let go and we let God.”

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Commentary on Luke 4:16-30

Today we begin the reading from Luke’s Gospel, which will bring us to the end of the Church year. We have already gone through Matthew’s and Mark’s, and John’s Gospel has been spread through various parts of the year, especially during the Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter seasons.

Luke’s Gospel is a companion volume to the Acts of the Apostles, and the language and structure of these two books indicate that both were written by the same person. They are addressed to the same individual, Theophilus, and Acts refers to Luke’s Gospel. Luke’s Gospel and Acts could be considered as volume 1 and 2 of the same book.

Luke presents the works and teachings of Jesus that are especially important for understanding the way of salvation. Its scope is complete from the birth of Christ to his ascension and it appeals to both Jews and Gentiles.

Today, we take up Luke’s Gospel at the beginning of Jesus’ public life (chap 4). After his baptism by John the Baptist:

Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee…
(Luke 4:14)

As we know, Galilee is the northern province of Palestine and his home province. Already people were talking about him everywhere.

Now, as our reading opens, we find him in Nazareth, the small town in Galilee where he grew up. From the verses immediately preceding, it does not seem that Jesus actually began his ministry in Nazareth. The event described here may not have taken place until a year later. One suggestion (NIV Bible) is that all that is described in John’s Gospel between 1:19 to 4:42 took place between the temptation in the desert and the moving north to Galilee (see Luke 4:13-14).

But Luke has arranged the structure of his Gospel so that Jesus will begin his public life in Nazareth, and will gradually proceed southwards towards his goal, Jerusalem, without turning back. In the other Synoptics, he moves around Galilee in all directions, and John suggests that he made a number of visits to Jerusalem during his public life.

The Jerusalem Bible suggests that our passage today actually combines three distinct parts:

1. vv 16-22 Jesus is honoured: occurring at the time indicated by Matthew 4:13;
2. vv 23-24 Jesus astonishing his audience: the visit of which Matthew and Mark speak;
3. vv 25-30 the life of Jesus threatened: not mentioned by Matthew or Mark and to be placed towards the end of the Galilean ministry.

In this way Luke presents an introductory tableau which is a summary and symbol of Christ’s great offer and of its contemptuous rejection by his own people.

As the reading opens we find Jesus in the town synagogue. It is a Sabbath day. He gets up to read the Scripture and comments on it. The ruler of the synagogue could authorise any adult Jew to read the Scripture lesson. The passage he reads is full of significance. It comes from the prophet Isaiah and Jesus’ reading of it amounts to a manifesto or what we might call today a ‘mission statement’. ‘Books’ in those days were in the form of scrolls, and the Scriptures were kept in a special place in the synagogue and given to the reader by an attendant. Jesus may have chosen the passage himself or it may have been assigned for that day.

But it is more than just a mission statement. As he reads, it becomes clear that the whole statement is about Jesus himself:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…

This has already been confirmed during his baptism in the river Jordan when “the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove” and a voice was heard to say:

You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.
(Luke 3:22)

Next Jesus, still reading from Isaiah, says:

…because he has anointed me…

In saying this, he is making an unequivocal claim to be the Messiah or the Christ, the long-awaited liberating King of Israel. The word ‘Messiah’, translated into Greek as Christos, means someone who is anointed with oil (we call the oil in baptism and confirmation ‘chrism’). And a person was made king by having oil poured over his head (remember how David was anointed king). Jesus, of course, was not literally anointed, but had been figuratively ‘anointed’ by the coming of the Spirit on him during his baptism. ‘Anointing’ is our equivalent of ‘coronation’, symbolised by the putting of a crown on the new king.

Then comes the mission of this King:

-to bring good news to the poor,
-to proclaim release to the captives,
-recovery of sight to the blind,
-to set free those who are oppressed,
-to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

There is nothing here of restoring the glories of Israel, nothing about conquering enemies and laying waste their lands. No, it is about letting the poor of this world hear the Good News of God’s love for them. It is about healing and reconciliation. It is about liberating those who are tied down by any form of enslavement. It is about helping people to see clearly the true meaning of life. It is about restoring wholeness to people’s lives and to societies. It is about the inauguration of the Kingdom by its King.

It is, in short, the whole picture of Jesus that will unfold in the pages of Luke, a Gospel which focuses on the poor and vulnerable, a Gospel of tenderness and compassion, a Gospel of the Spirit and of joy, a Gospel of prayer and healing.

It is about proclaiming “the year of the Lord’s favor”. This refers to the Messianic age when salvation would be proclaimed. Isaiah, in the original text, is alluding to the Year of Jubilee, when every 50 years slaves were set free, debts were cancelled and ancestral lands were returned to the original family. Isaiah was thinking mainly of freedom from Babylonian captivity, but Jesus was speaking of liberation across the board of human living.

As he finished the reading, Jesus put down the scroll and said:

Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

And the townspeople who thought they knew him so well were overawed by the wisdom with which he spoke. This positive reaction to Jesus is a favourite theme in Luke.

Rhetorically they asked:

Is not this Joseph’s son?

But they were wrong. He was not Joseph’s son; he was the son of Mary and of the Father, the divine Word sharing our ‘flesh’ (as suggested above, this event may have occurred on a second visit).

And this in turn leads us to the third section of the reading which provides an unexpected turn of events and is more in harmony with the later part of Jesus’ public life. Jesus’ hearers were surprised at the way he spoke, but they were not moved to change. After all, he was ‘just’ the son of Joseph, and someone they knew so well could have nothing to say to them. At the same time Jesus says they, his own townspeople, must be wondering why he is not doing the things in Nazareth that he was doing in places like Capernaum.

Capernaum, apparently a sizeable town, was where Peter lived and Jesus made his house, the centre out of which he did his missionary work in Galilee. A modern church now stands over the ruins of a 5th century basilica on the supposed site of Peter’s house and there is a 4th century synagogue nearby.

The reason for the townspeople’s non-acceptance of Jesus is that they do not really accept him for what he is. He reminds them that prophets are seldom accepted in their own place. Familiarity blinds people to their message. Their attitude was: “I know who he is and he has nothing to say to me.” Jesus then gives two rather provocative examples:

• During a great famine in the time of the prophet Elijah, Elijah was sent to help, not his fellow Israelites, but a poor widow in Zarephath, near Sidon, in non-Jewish territory. Sidon was one of the oldest Phoenician cities on the Mediterranean coast and about 33 km north of Tyre. (Later, Jesus would heal the daughter of a Gentile woman here.)
• In the time of the prophet Elisha, there were many lepers in Israel, but Elisha was sent to cure Naaman, a gentile general from Syria.

God reaching out to Gentiles through his prophets sets the stage for the Gentiles to receive the message of the Prophet Jesus, which is so much a theme of Luke’s writings. These remarks so angered the people of Nazareth that they dragged Jesus to the brow of a hill with the intention of throwing him down, but:

…he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

Whether he did this miraculously or from the sheer power of his personality is not clear. In any case, his time had not yet come.

Prophetic voices being rejected by their own is a phenomenon only too common in our own day. And it was something Jesus foretold would happen to his followers, simply for being his followers and proclaiming his vision of life. In the meantime, let us make Jesus’ mission statement our own. It is what being a Christian means.

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Commentary on Acts 3:11-26

Immediately after the dramatic cure of the beggar who was “lame from birth” in the Temple, Peter takes the opportunity to address the crowds which had gathered, to explain the meaning of what they have just witnessed.

The scene takes place at “Solomon’s Portico”. This was a porch along the inner side of the wall enclosing the outer court, with rows of 27-foot high stone columns and a roof of cedar. So it was a roofed structure—somewhat similar to a Greek stoa. There was a common, but mistaken, belief that it dated back to Solomon’s time.

The message that Peter now gives the amazed crowd gathering around is similar to other addresses in the early Church and contains: 1) an explanation of what is happening; 2) the gospel of Jesus Christ—his death, resurrection and glorification; and 3) a call to repentance and change of life, symbolised by baptism.

First, Peter makes clear that the healing that has just taken place before their eyes is not by his own power or that of his companion, John. They are not to be gaped at as having supernatural powers. What has been done has been through the power of Jesus, who has been empowered by the God they all believe in, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Jesus is the one his hearers “handed over” to Pilate. Here again we have this ‘handing over’, a phrase which runs like a refrain through the Gospel. And he whom they handed over was the “Holy and Righteous One”, indicating Jesus’ special relationship to the Father and his sinlessness—in stark contrast to the guilt of the murderous Barabbas.

Pilate was only too anxious to let Jesus go, being aware of his innocence, but he gave in to the demands of the crowd and yielded to their choice of a convicted murderer, Barabbas. To the crowd, Peter says:

…you killed the author of life…

While Barabbas had taken away life and was freed, Jesus—the source of life—was condemned to death. The sequence of the Easter Sunday Mass says:

Dux vitae mortuus regnat vivus.

Literally translated this means: “The Leader of life, having died, reigns alive.”

Peter and his companions are witnesses that Jesus was raised again. And it was in the name of this same Jesus that the poor beggar has been restored to health and mobility.

God has “glorified his servant” by Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. The word “servant” is reminiscent of the Songs of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah (and which we read early in Holy Week), especially Isaiah 52:13—53:12. Jesus himself spoke of being a servant when he washed his disciples’ feet and when he said that he had come to serve and not to be served. All of this did not quite fit the image of the kind of Messiah the Jews were expecting.

And it is by faith in this very Jesus that the poor beggar, “lame from birth” and well known to the crowds who came regularly to the Temple, has been “made strong”:

…faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.

Peter excuses his hearers (as Jesus himself did), saying they did not fully realise at the time what they were doing. Yet, the suffering of the Christ had long been foretold by the prophets. The early Christians saw the suffering and death of Jesus clearly indicated in Old Testament prophecies. The Jews, however, did not expect a suffering and dying Messiah—quite the opposite. They saw in Isaiah’s Servant Songs their own suffering as a people.

Now it is not too late for them to ‘repent’ (there is metanoia again), that is, radically to change their ways and thus have their sin taken away. To ‘repent’ is not just to express sorrow; it involves re-establishing one’s close relationship with God and submitting totally to his Way. The nearest English equivalent is ‘con-version’, a ‘turning round’, which means, of course, a ‘turning towards’.

Jesus, after all, is the prophet who was foretold by Moses, who, Peter tells the crowd, had said:

The Lord your God will raise up for you from your own people a prophet like me. You must listen to whatever he tells you.

This is a loose quotation from Deuteronomy (18:15). In fact, at the time of Jesus, some Jews expected a unique prophet to come in fulfilment of this text. So early Christianity applied this tradition and text to Jesus, especially where Christian teaching seemed to diverge from traditional Judaism.

And indeed, says Peter, every prophet from Samuel down predicted what is now taking place before their eyes. Samuel was one of the earliest of the prophets and the one who anointed David, Jesus’ ancestor, as king. So the Jews in his audience are the heirs of the prophets’ messages; they are the heirs to the covenant first made way back with Abraham:

…and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice. (Gen 22:18)

It is time now for the people to acknowledge this sacred covenant, made new through Jesus Christ, and they will do that by their accepting Jesus as their Saviour and abandoning their sinful ways to walk the Way of Jesus. Exactly the same applies to us.

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Commentary on Revelation 5:1-10

The vision we were introduced to yesterday of God on his throne in glory continues with the introduction of a scroll which represents God’s secret plans for the world. Its contents are unfolded in chapters 6-9 of Revelation, which, however, we will not be reading in the liturgy. Today’s passage is beautiful—once the symbolism of the images is made clear.

First, a word about scrolls. The normal way for writings to be kept was in the form of scrolls. Books, as we know them, did not come into existence until the 2nd century AD. The scroll was made either of leather (e.g. parchment) or from papyrus, a reed whose fibres were made into a kind of rough paper. They were written normally on only one side (but sometimes two) and in columns with pen and ink. After completion, they were rolled up and sealed so that only those authorised could read them (remember, very few people could read—widespread literacy would not come until after the printing press was invented). Some examples of scrolls found in Egypt were up to 100 feet in length, but biblical scrolls would seldom be more than 30 feet—for instance the text of Isaiah. Reading them was a somewhat inconvenient process as they had to be unrolled and re-rolled at the same time. The arrival of the book changed all that by making any part of the script quickly accessible.

In his vision, John sees “the One” on the throne—God, holding a scroll in his hands. Unusually, this scroll was written on both sides and it had seven seals. This indicated its degree of total inaccessibility to the unauthorised.

The voice of an angel then is heard asking who, if anyone:

…is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?

But it seemed that there was absolutely no one in the whole universe (“in heaven, on the earth, or under the earth”) who could do so:

And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it.

The known universes consisted of these three components. Under the earth was Hades, the place of the dead and the word corresponding to the Hebrew sheol. Only Christ will have the power to release those trapped there.

John weeps when he realises that no one is found worthy to open and reveal the contents of the scroll, until one of the 24 elders tells him that there is someone who can open the scroll and read it:

See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.

The “Lion of Judah” is a messianic title found in Genesis, where Judah is referred to as a “lion’s cub” and promised the right to rule “until he comes to whom it belongs”. The “Root of David”, from Isaiah, points to a future saviour-king descended from King David. Our Lord Jesus, of course, is indicated here. “He has conquered” refers to conquering Satan and the world.

The “Lion” then appears in the form of a Lamb, standing between the throne of God with the four creatures and the outer circles of the elders on their 24 thrones. The Lamb bears the marks of having been sacrificed, for this is the Passover Lamb sacrificed to save God’s people. Although the wounds are visible, the Lamb has risen from death and is upright in triumph and victory. The wounds are the badges of his victory over sin and death.

As a conqueror of death, this Lamb is also a Lion. (Incidentally, Revelation uses a word for “lamb” (arnion) 29 times. Arnion is found only once elsewhere in the New Testament—in the scene after the resurrection where Jesus tells Peter to “feed my lambs”—see John 21:15). There is also a tradition in apocryphal writing for the ‘lamb’ as a victorious military leader. The Lamb has seven horns and seven eyes. The number ‘seven’ indicates fullness and completeness. The horns represent power and the eyes knowledge and wisdom.

The Lamb now comes forward to take the scroll from the hands of God sitting on his throne. As soon as he does so, the four creatures and the 24 elders all prostrate themselves. They give the same worship to the Lamb as they do to the One on the throne.

They each have a harp, used to accompany the songs of praise they sing, and bowls of incense representing the prayers of the whole Christian community. Incense was a normal feature of Hebrew ritual. In later Jewish thought, angels often present the prayers of saints to God (e.g. Tob 12:11-15). Our image of heaven as people kneeling on clouds playing harps comes from images like this in Revelation. But of course, our future life with God should in no way be seen as being like this!

The passage concludes with the “new song” of the creatures and the elders, a hymn in praise of the Lamb, who alone is found worthy to open the scroll. In the Old Testament, a new song celebrates a new intervention of deliverance or blessing by God. Here, it is the Lamb who has earned the right to open the scroll by the sacrificing and pouring out of his blood, which bought back people of every race and nation and:

…made them a kingdom and priests serving our God,
and they will reign on earth.

“Kindom [or ‘kings’ in some translations] and priests”, previously an Old Testament designation of Israel, is now applied in the New Testament to the whole Christian community.

Through our baptism and our identifying with the Lamb, we share in a special way in both the kingship and priesthood of Christ, and also in his role as prophet. This is true of every single Christian and not just the hierarchy, clergy or religious.

Today we give special thanks and praise to the Lamb, who sacrificed his life in love for us and who, through his life, death and resurrection and through the Gospel (the Scroll) he bequeathed to us, has left us a priceless guide to a life of happiness and fulfilment.

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Commentary on Luke 4:31-37

Immediately after his mixed reception in Nazareth, Jesus moves on to Capernaum, a town on the north shore of Galilee, which was to be the base from which Jesus did much of his missionary work. As in Nazareth, he taught the people in the synagogue on the sabbath. Unlike in Nazareth:

They were astounded at his teaching because he spoke with authority.

He did not quote other authorities like the teachers of the law, because his authority was directly from God; it was his own.

At the same time, it was not the authority of domination. It was the authority of someone who has access to special knowledge, the authority of someone who speaks in his own name and not just on behalf of others, the authority of one who empowers others and makes them grow.

The word ‘authority’ comes from the Latin auctoritas, which in turn comes from the verb augere, meaning to increase or augment. And Jesus’ authority is not only in word and teaching. Right there in the synagogue as he speaks is a man possessed by a “spirit of an unclean demon”. The spirit, through the man, speaks in fear of the power of Jesus:

Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.

This title seems to indicate that the spirit recognises Jesus’ divine origin, but not his Messiahship. There was a belief in those times that knowing the exact name of one’s opponent gave one power over him.

Jesus ordered the evil spirit to leave the man, who was thrown to the ground, but not hurt. The people are amazed. Exorcism was not new to them, but they had never seen it done with such speed and effectiveness. They are astounded again at the power and authority of Jesus. They realise they are in the presence of someone very special, in fact, the “Holy One of God”.

Each one of us is given authority of some kind—as a parent, a teacher or perhaps our job responsibility. Let us make sure that we use it in such a way as to enhance the abilities of others rather than diminish them.

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Commentary on Acts 4:1-12

The next stage in the mission of the disciples now takes place—after the proclamation and healing comes the persecution and harassment, as promised by Jesus.

As in the Gospel, we see the contrasting reactions between the Jewish leaders and the people. The leaders, mostly Sadducees who did not believe in resurrection after death, are objecting to the Apostles’ teaching about the resurrection of Jesus, and put them under arrest together with the man they had healed.

Those arresting the Apostles include the priests, the captain of the temple guard and Sadducees. The priests were those responsible for the temple liturgies. The temple guard was composed of Levites, and their captain ranked next to the high priest. The Sadducees, among other things, were drawn from the priestly families and from the upper classes. The high priest was one of their members. They tended to be pro-Rome and hence found Jesus and his followers to be a dangerous element. The Sadducees were strongly opposed to and by the Pharisees.

As it is late in the day, Peter and John are thrown into jail for the night. The evening sacrifices ended about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and the temple gates would be closed after that. Judgements involving life and death had to be begun and ended during daylight hours.

In spite of the religious authorities’ actions, many of the people who had heard Peter’s preaching did believe in his message and their numbers had swollen to 5,000, up from 3,000 on the day of Pentecost—an amazing number in such a short time.

On the following day, Peter and John are made to stand before a meeting of the top leadership, including the high priest and members of his family. They are led by Annas. He was officially high priest from AD 6-15, but deposed by the Romans and succeeded by his son, Eleazar, and then by his son-in-law, Caiaphas (whom we meet during the account of Jesus’ passion). However, Annas was still recognised by the Jews as the real high priest. The John mentioned with him may be a son, while Alexander is otherwise unknown.

What strikes one in this scene is the boldness of Peter, when compared to his behaviour during the passion of Jesus. As Jesus had promised in his lifetime, Peter is filled with the Spirit which gives him both his courage and his eloquence to speak out boldly. What they have done, they tell their accusers, has been done in the name of Jesus:

…this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead.

Quoting from Psalm 118, Peter tells them about Jesus:

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone. (Ps 118:22)

In general, the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies was important in early Christian preaching. This is especially the case with Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus, himself, was quoted as using this text about himself.

The passage ends with:

There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.

The message is very clear. In the Roman world in the time of Acts, salvation was often attributed to the emperor, often hailed as a ‘saviour’ and a ‘god’. Peter, however, affirms that real salvation can only come from Christ.

A passage like this gives us encouragement. First, we ought not be surprised that we will be mocked and attacked for our faith in Christ and his Gospel, and second, we can be assured that we will be provided with what we need when faced with hostility and even persecution.

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Commentary on Revelation 10:8-11

We skip a number of chapters in coming to today’s reading. The intervening chapters had discussed the gradual opening of the seven seals on the scroll and the sounding of six of seven trumpets.

Today’s reading is a digression from the main theme. John has been offered a small scroll by an angel of God. This scroll represents a revelation from God. He is told:

Go, take the scroll that is open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.

When he does so, he is told to “take it and eat”. He is warned that:

…it will be bitter to your stomach but sweet as honey in your mouth.

The scene is very reminiscent of an almost identical passage in the prophet Ezekiel where the prophet is told to eat a scroll and then share what he has received with others. It also reminds us, of course, of the instructions of Jesus to eat his flesh and drink his blood.

In all three cases the meaning is the same. They are instructions to absorb and assimilate completely the word of God or, in the case of the Gospel, the words and teaching of Jesus, who is, of course, the Word of God, and make them our own. They then become part of our very being.

The contents are both sweet and sour. The message in itself, at a first taste, is sweet in its promise of life, but it is sour in so far it will also entail a degree of pain and suffering for the Church and its members in living out the message. And that is the experience that John has as he “eats” the scroll.

Now, armed with the revelation that the scroll contains, John is told to “prophesy again”, that is, to proclaim the message of God’s plan which he has received from God. These prophecies are recorded in Revelation after the sounding of the seventh trumpet (which begins at verse 11:15, but will not be included in our readings).

In a very similar way, we are called on to “eat” the Gospel and the whole of the Scriptures. This is part of the real meaning of our “eating and drinking” in the Eucharist. It is not just a physical or devotional act. It is a community statement of our deepest desire to see and love Christ in every person and in every experience of our day.

Unfortunately, ‘eating the Scriptures’—the Word of God, is for many Catholics a very small part of their daily diet. Some are quite illiterate when it comes to the Word of God. It is a sad situation where, among Christians generally, Catholics are probably some of the greatest offenders.

And yet, we cannot really call ourselves disciples until we have entered on what is a lifelong task—deepening our understanding of God’s Word and assimilating its vision into our very being. A knowledge of our school catechism will not fill this void.

We need, as Paul tells us, to have the “mind of Christ”, that is, to see life just as he sees it. We need to be able to say, as he could:

…it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.
(Gal 2:20)

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Commentary on Luke 4:38-44

After the scene in the synagogue where Jesus healed a man possessed by an evil spirit, he goes straight to Peter’s house. It was a Sabbath day so Jesus could not move around or do any major activity. He seems to have used this house as his base when in Capernaum and that part of Galilee. Jesus had “nowhere to lay his head”, no dwelling of his own, but it seems clear that he was not homeless. There were always people ready to offer him hospitality—a custom of the Middle East and a model for Christians of every age and place.

Peter’s mother-in-law was in the grip of a fever and the disciples begged Jesus to do something for her. Jesus stood over her and, with a word, cured her. Immediately she got up and began to serve Jesus and his group.

There is a lesson here. Health and healing are not just for the individual. Her healing immediately restored her to the community and the duty of serving that community. And not just because she was a woman! If it had been the father-in-law, the same would have applied. As long as we are in health, our energies are meant to be directed to the building up of the community and not simply for our personal enjoyment.

“As the sun was setting…” – we need to remember it was a Sabbath. The Sabbath went from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday (so Jesus could not be properly buried on the Friday evening when he died). According to the traditions, Jews could not travel more than two-thirds of a mile or carry any load. Only after sunset could the sick be brought to Jesus.

As soon as the Sabbath was over, large numbers brought their sick to him:

…and he laid his hands on each of them and cured them.

As Jesus had announced in the synagogue at Nazareth, the Kingdom of God had arrived and was entering the lives of people, bringing them health and wholeness.

Many were also liberated from the power of evil spirits. These spirits shouted at Jesus “You are the Son of God”. As we mentioned earlier, by using Jesus’ title they hoped to exert control over him. That did not work, of course. Whether these were actual cases of possession or were psychological or mental disorders which made people behave in abnormal ways, and perhaps ways harmful to themselves and others, is not clear. What is clear is that the presence of the Kingdom is being felt.

At daybreak—Jesus had been working the whole night for the people—he went off to a quiet place. The desert is the place where God is to be found and very likely, as Mark tells us, Jesus went there to pray and to be alone.

The people, who had seen what he did for them, wanted him to stay with them (their attitude is in marked contrast to the people of Nazareth), but he could not and would not:

I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.

And so we are told that he was now preaching in the synagogues of Judea—in the south of the country, although the term may simply refer to the whole of Jewish territory. No place could have a monopoly on his attentions.

We need to attach ourselves to Jesus and keep close to him, but we cannot cling to him in a way that prevents others from experiencing his healing touch. On the contrary, it is our task as his disciples to see that as many as possible come to know and experience his love, his compassion and his healing.