"And in that day, says the LORD, you
will call me, 'My husband,' and no longer will you call me, 'My Ba'al.'
For I will remove the names of the Ba'als from her mouth, and they shall
be mentioned by name no more. "And in that day, says the LORD, I will answer
the heavens and they shall answer the earth; and the earth shall answer
the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel;
Today's Epistle is from the 2nd Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, beginning at the 3rd Chapter, and the 1st Verse:
Are we beginning
to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation
to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written
on your hearts, to be known and read by all men; and you show that you
are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with
the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of
human hearts. Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward
God. Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming
from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers
of a new covenant, not in a written code but in the Spirit; for the written
code kills, but the Spirit gives life.
+ A Reading from the Gospel of Mark, beginning at the 2nd Chapter, and the 18th Verse:
Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; if he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but new wine is for fresh skins."
Today's Old Testament
reading is from Hosea, who developed the idea of Israel as the Bride of
Yahweh. The Gospel reading follows this idea, showing Christ as the
Bridegroom of the Church. The Epistle points up the consequences
of this union, for people who heed the Word, and live it -- they are an
example unto the nations.
The Prophet Hosea is known for having married a "harlot", and for having given his children horrible names. Modern scholarship nuances this a bit, by speculating that the "harlot" that Hosea the man married was a Jewish woman who participated in the cults of Asherah and the Baals, which were popular in the Northern kingdom of Israel just before it fell to the Assyrians in about 730 B.C.
Hosea makes a great point about how the Kingdom of Israel, who should be Yahweh's bride and supporter, has gone "whoring" after strange gods. He also Works on presenting the image of Yahweh as a faithful husband, who pursues and tries to woo his bride away from The Baals.
He portrays the Lord as saying: "...you will call me, 'My husband,' and no longer will you call me, 'My Ba'al.'", and makes the promise that. if Israel but come back to Him, that he will make the land fruitful. History tells us that the Kingdom of Israel did not come back to Yahweh, and that the land was laid waste by the Assyrians, its people were led off to captivity, and strangers dwelled in the land that was Israel.
Some people want to say, out of a misplaced zeal for "solidarity with the common folk", that Jesus was an illiterate Galilean preacher. No such thing -- today's Gospel shows Jesus using Hosea's images and ideas -- which the Pharisees would have recognized, being schooled in Scripture -- to make a point of who He was.
Like his claim in John 8:58: "Before Abraham was, I AM!" -- which carefully and deliberately echoes the: "...I AM who AM.." of Exodus 3:14, this one must have infuriated the Pharisees. Jesus claims, again and again, subtly and overtly, to be God and the Son of God -- and proves it, over, and over, with miracles.
He reads from the Scriptures in the synagogues in Capharnaum and other places -- and interprets with authority, much to the discomfort of the priests and lawyers. He stakes out his territory as both prophet and Messiah, and here makes claim to being the bridegroom of Israel, whom Hosea spoke about. Hardly an illiterate, and hardly a shy man.
The Church has always seen Christ as the Bridegroom, and the Church as the Bride -- and, as in earthly marriages, where two people become one flesh, so in the Heavenly Marriage between Christ and His Church, we too become part of Him. He is the Vine, we the branches -- by our participation in His Incarnation, Death and Resurrection, we are brought into intimate contact with God, and He with us.
Having ascended into Heaven, He has sent the Paraclete -- the Holy Spirit, third person of the Trinity -- to inform us, and infuse in us the Grace of God, if we but have the wit to accept it. This is what Paul talks about in today's Epistle -- that Christians are truly letters to the whole world, written by the Holy Spirit -- messengers of the Good News -- Gospel -- Evangelion.
This of course, is another way of saying: "By their fruits ye shall know them." Let us work and pray that we may be truly fruitful, true letters of recommendation to the whole world, true livers of and witnesses to the Gospel . . . .
In the Name of The Father + And of the Son And of the Holy Spirit Amen.