Mass this morning was offered for the repose of the soul of Rosaleen Farrell (+) and for her family and friends, those who love her. Eternal rest grant unto her o Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace.
Now that we are on the very threshold of Holy Week, the readings at Mass begin to converge. Who was Christ? What did He accomplish? If we look at the long history of the nation of Israel, from its birth in the desert of Sinai to the final destruction of its kingdoms in the sixth century BC and its subsequent development in subjugation and in the relative freedom of the Hashmonean dynasty, we see its initial unity increasingly fragmented and the constant attempts of kings and prophets to reunite the people under the common religion, the true worship of the God, increasingly centred around the Temple in Jerusalem. This much is clear from our first reading today, which is given by the prophet Ezechiel: before the Gentiles could be drawn into, a common theme among the Hebrew prophets, Israel would be united and purified from idolatry and apostasy, which had brought the curse of disunity and exile upon them.
"I mean to recall the sons of Israel from their exile among the Gentiles, gather them from every side and restore them to their home. And there, in the hill-country of Israel, I will make one nation of them, with one king over them all; no longer shall they be two nations under two crowns. No more shall they be contaminated with idol-worship, and foul rites, and forbidden things a many; I will deliver them from the lands that were once the haunts of their sinning, and make them clean again; they shall be my people, and I will be their God. They shall have one king over them, a shepherd to tend them all, my servant David; my will they shall follow, my commands remember and obey. And their home shall be the home of your fathers, the land I gave to my servant Jacob; they and their children shall enjoy it, and their children’s children, in perpetuity, and ever my servant David shall be their prince." - Ezechiel 37: 21-25
And so, years after the death of King David, David is meant to return as the common shepherd of the people. The Hebrew people, given the true worship of God as a gift centuries ago, were also to be a light in the darkness to the Gentiles, those not of their own religious observance. Eventually, the Gentiles would also have to be drawn into the true worship of the one God, and they too would stand under the banner of the new David, whom God here calls 'my servant David.' And so we see the power of the principal claim of Christ our Lord, that He was David's heir, that He was the Son of David.
And in the Gospel reading today, we find that more and more of the Jews living in and around Jerusalem were accepting that claim. This culminates in tomorrow's observance of Palm Sunday, when Christ triumphantly enters the holy City as David's heir. And this is a threat to the establishment of the Temple, where the Saduccees and the Herodians had had arranged a delicate political balance with the Roman authorities, whereby everybody was comfortable and the peace was kept. They could not understand that David's heir was to rule not the land, but the hearts of men. My Kingdom is not of this world, the Lord would later say, or my men would have fought for me. The Temple authorities and the high-priest, rather, are focused on temporal matters, fearing that Christ would bring about an insurrection and the Roman's would bring force to bear and end the status quo. Thus in our Gospel reading today,
"'What are we about?' they said. 'This man is performing many miracles, and if we leave him to his own devices, he will find credit everywhere. Then the Romans will come, and make an end of our city and our race.'" - Gospel of S. John 11: 47-48
Then the great politican, Caiaphas the high-priest, decided that Christ should die if it were to save the nation from destruction. This the Church later saw as a prophetic statement, for theologically, Christ did, in fact, save the nation from destruction through His death and resurrection. And the nation would survive after the destruction of the City. For the moment however, Christ now had to take cover, for He still had much to accomplish before Good Friday, and His persecutors were looking for their opportunity to have Him arrested. And so chapter 11 of the Gospel of S. John ends with the ominous:
"so they looked out for Jesus, and said to one another as they stood there in the temple, 'What is your way of it? Will he come up to the feast?'"
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