Identity of the Messiah (2023-01-01, Solemnity of Mary)

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Solemnity Mary, Mother of God ● Numbers 6:22-27    ● ● Psalm 67 ●●  Galatians 4:4-7 ● ● + Luke 2:16-21 ● ●     

Title: Identity of the Messiah

 

 [__01__]     Blessed New Year of 2023 to all of you.   It is a necessary part of every superhero movie – Batman, Superman, Spiderman – that there is some ordinary person with a secret superhero identity.  For example, Bruce Wayne (Batman),  Clark Kent (Superman), Peter Parker (Spiderman).

          It is part of the pleasure / gift of watching such a movie that you – as the moviegoer – have access to information and data – that the characters in the movie are unaware of.

          And, in the context of the movie’s drama, it allows the superheroes to be a more effective crime fighters because the “general audience / population” does not know who they really are.

 

[__02__]  There is some limited sense in which this also is the case in the Gospel and because Jesus Himself – born the Son of God – has come with a much more intense “crime fighting” and “anti-evil” agenda than any of these fictional superheroes.

          From the very beginning, not everyone knew who Jesus was. From the beginning of Jesus’ life, we know that there would have been forces – both natural forces – and supernatur forces – out to get him, out to destroy him.

          Jesus is born the Son of God – and he is conceived and born – in a must unusual way – Jesus does not have a human father – Joseph is his adoptive, foster father.

          But this is not known to everyone from the beginning.

          Of course, this is known to Joseph and Mary – from the beginning – it is not clear that this is known – or needs to be known by anyone else, at least not for a while.

          If King Herod had known that there had been such a miraculous birth, such knowledge would have enabled him to track Jesus down, in his plot to destroy and take the life of the “newborn king”.

          King Herod – of the Roman Empire – would have seen himself as something of a crimefighter. We see him today – for the true villain he was. We have the benefit of the Gospel and history to see this.

 [__03__]  In the Gospel this Sunday, we read that the shepherds have been saying and announcing many things about the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.  The angels have also been announcing Jesus as the Savior of the world.

          It is a message which you and I know well and in fact draws into church – especially on Christmas – and in Christmas Season.  This message is one that is reminding not just to worship Jesus on these high holidays but to make him the center of our lives, every day.

          Not everyone is as well-informed as the shepherds and the angels and the Holy Family in the New Testament.

 

 [__04__]    This feast day is known as the solemnity of Mary,  Mother of God, January 1^st. The reason Mary is given such prominence is not to place her above God, but reminds us that the incarnate God -- Jesus -- took his flesh and blood from the Virgin Mary.

As Mary’s true son, Jesus didn't just take up residence for 9 months leading to Dec-25.  Rather, he is the Son of God in flesh and blood through the flesh and blood of Mary.

Jesus is as united to Mary as any child to a mother, but also remains his own distinct person.  You and I were conceived and born the same way.

This feast day also reminds us that it is the role of a mother to be pondering and to be praying continuously about the future of her children.

You as mothers, as godmothers, as mother figures in other people's lives, do this as well.

Your mother was called to ponder and pray in this way, and Mary our mother, our Blessed Mother is doing this as well

 

[__05__]    Isn’t it true that some of our most beloved -  most remembered – Christmas gifts are those which were bestowed upon us by those who knew what we needed or wanted – but also given to us without us having to ask. The other person knew something which you did not know.

          In a similar way, is it not a joy to discover and give a present to someone who has not asked for a particular gift, but would benefit from your insight, your discovery?

          In other words, you know something which the other person did not know, which was hidden from the “general audience”.

 

[__06__]     SOURCE: The Sex Life of Joseph and Mary  by John Cavadini   December 18, 2017

https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/the-sex-life-of-joseph-and-mary/

          A professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame – John Cavadini – wrote that we can learn from God’s wisdom and plan something about Jesus’ origin and his own plan for

for our salvation and about something And perhaps we did not expect to be true, or did not expect to happen.

          These 2 ideas are also summarized in 1^st Corinthians by St. Paul as the “foolishness that is truly is wise” and the “weakness that his truly strong”. Paul wrote: “God chose the foolish of the world to shame the strong and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something” (1 Corinthians 1:27-28)

          1^st. FOOLISHNESS THAT IS TRULY WISE.  It goes without saying that we would rather be “wise” than “foolish”, or we would rather be “smart” than “foolish”. But do we not learn – in our lives – that the smart choice or the wise choice is not always the most obvious one.

          In God’s plan, this is also the case. It would have seemed “obvious” for God to announce – on prime-time TV and in full HD – that Jesus is the Messiah, born of the Virgin. But, this was not his way. Such a plan would not have allowed him to build up the Holy Family, to build up the disciples, and later to suffer on the Cross.

          “The marriage of Mary and Joseph is thus an intrinsic part of God’s Wisdom, an intrinsic part of the logic of the Incarnation, which is the logic of God’s philanthropia, a logic of foolishness, invisible to the ruling powers because it is, to them, foolishness and not wisdom.”

Because Jesus is invisible in the marriage of Mary and Joseph, invisible to the ruling powers, this foolishness doesn't seem like wisdom to them, but it is wisdom to us.

2^nd WEAKNESS OR HUMILITY THAT IS TRULY STRONG. 

Mary and Joseph are the parents, and biblically so designated, of Jesus only. Jesus is their son.

Thus, Jesus is not some “prodigy“ or superhero from another planet who just landed here on Earth.  Growing up as a child, then a young man and finally as an adult, this enables Jesus to conquer Satan and to conquer evil by giving himself up to death.

Jesus does not conquer Satan by “pulling rank” publicly.

Rather, Jesus conquer Satan and conquers evil by emptying, emptying His divine identity into a hidden person, a hidden child. His public identity is that he is the ordinary son of Joseph and Mary. His later to-be-revealed identity – as the Messiah – will catch some by surprise.

In this regard, Jesus allows us to become part of his body part of his life. And it also reminds us that we enter into God's plan and God's kingdom by many sufferings by many tribulations. This was part of Jesus Jesus's way. He goes before us in secret ways but in also ways that will be known to all.

 

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