The power of the Word of God
THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR C – 26 January 2025
The power of the Word of God is that is it always has the potential to be fulfilled in our hearing. Whenever the Word of God is proclaimed to us, or whenever we prayerfully study the Scriptures, the Spirit which we were all given in baptism, fulfils those words in our hearing. In other words, God speaks to our hearts through the Word. In the words of the Letter to the Hebrews, the Word of God “is alive and active; it is sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Heb 4:12)
This calls for attentive listening on our part, to not let a single word fall to the ground unheeded or neglected. Right from ancient times, the Israelites responded to the Word of God proclaimed in the assembly. The Torah, the Bible, was and is God speaking to the people of Israel, calling them into a covenant with him and growing them in relationship with him. This continues in our lives as Christians today as we consider the importance of the Scriptures in our life of faith.
In the first reading from the book of Nehemiah, Ezra, the priest, read the law of Moses to the people of Israel after their return to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon. The text says that the ears of all the people were attentive. They stood to listen, out of reverence, much like we do when the Gospel is proclaimed, and Ezra and the Levite priests read from the book clearly and explained the meaning of the text to the people so that they could understand it. And we hear how they wept as they heard the words of the law.
Remember that these were a people who had suffered considerably in exile in Babylon. Now they have returned to a Jerusalem which is in ruins. The Temple had to be rebuilt and the walls set up. These people would have been overwhelmed by the task ahead of them. They would have been carrying the burden of their unfaithfulness to the covenant with God, which had let to their exile in the first place.
And into this experience, into their lives, the Word of God speaks. The reading gives us a sense of how captivated they were. They stood for hours listening to the Torah, the first five books of the Bible being read and explained to them, and we are told that they were all in tears as listened. They were told that this new beginning, this time, was a time of joy, a time sacred to God, a time of salvation.
In the first reading for Mass today, the public reading of the Word of God from a wooden pulpit built for the purpose is often regarded as the historical beginnings of the Liturgy of the Word in Judaism and Christianity. This is why it is not surprizing that this Sunday is called the Word of God Sunday. As we listen to the reading here today, we are echoing what happened in this reading 450 years before the birth of Christ.
The people assembled to hear the reading and explanation of the book of the Law, the Torah, in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, is an image of the people gathered in the synagogue in the time of Jesus, and an image of us gathered here today to listen to the Word of God. We need to see in our lives, situations, emotions and experiences comparable to those of the people of Israel during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, and to those in the synagogue at Nazareth, so that the Lord can speak to us through these words.
The Gospel gives us a snapshot from the beginning of Jesus’s public ministry. After starting his preaching and miracles in the whole region of Galilee, he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up, and went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom.
The reading is full of drama and expectant silence. An attendant handed Jesus a scroll of the prophet Isaiah and Jesus unrolled the scroll and found the text of Isaiah, chapter 61. He read from the text, rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant and took his seat. As everyone in the synagogue stared at him, Jesus made an astonishing statement; “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus said that, as they listened to him reading the text - that prophetic passage was actually being fulfilled in him. In other words, Jesus was saying that he is the one Isaiah was talking about. The Spirit of God had anointed him to give good news to the poor, free captives, give sight to the blind and proclaim a jubilee year.
The beauty of this Gospel passage is that by choosing this particular text from Isaiah, Jesus tells us what he is all about and what he considers his most important mission. This text that Jesus read, from the 61st chapter of Isaiah, is sometimes called the Gospel of the Old Testament. Jesus is the fulfilment of God’s promise of mercy and salvation that this passage speaks about; he is the one who has been anointed to preach the good news.
The sacred day, the sacred time, that Nehemiah and Ezra proclaim to the people, is echoed in Jesus’ proclamation of a year of God’s favour, a jubilee year, a year of mercy. In Old Testament times, every 50 years the people of Israel observed a jubilee year when slaves were set free, debts were cancelled, and land was returned to those who had lost it. It was a time of beginning again, a year of mercy.
Both these readings link with us here today as we listen to the Word of God during Mass and the homily that follows. We, who know our own captivity, our lack of faith, our woundedness and weakness, our need for mercy, see in this Messiah, our forgiveness, our hope, and salvation. Today as we hear this Gospel, as we stand with Jesus in the synagogue of Nazareth, at the beginning of his public ministry, and as we remember the new beginning of Israel after returning to Jerusalem from exile, we are offered a new beginning.
For this to be a new beginning for us, we need to recognise our own need for mercy. Pope Francis has said: The most important thing in the life of every man and every woman is not that they should never fall along the way. The important thing is always to get back up, not to stay on the ground licking our wounds. The Lord of mercy always forgives us; he always offers us the possibility of beginning again. As long as we are alive it is always possible to start over. All we have to do is let Jesus embrace us and forgive us. We may get tired of asking God for forgiveness, but God never tires of forgiving us because he is mercy. As Pope Francis says, Mercy is the first attribute of God; Mercy is the name of God.
On this Sunday when we hear the manifesto of Jesus the Messiah, we are called to recognise our need for mercy. Like the people who wept at the reading of the Law of Moses in the time of Nehemiah and Ezra, we recognise the beauty of these merciful words. At the beginning of this Jubilee year, we are called to a new beginning in our spiritual lives. We are called to begin again, to go back to the basics. The fundamental basis of the Gospel and our spiritual lives is the experience of mercy.
These readings are fulfilled in our presence as we hear them when we let speak to our hearts and into our lives. On this Word of God Sunday as we consider the importance of the proclamation of the Word of God and the role it plays in nourishing our faith, we consider that God is a God who wants to speak to us, to teach us, to draw us to himself. He wants to be in relationship with us, and so he speaks to us in whatever situation we find ourselves. Allow the Word of God to be fulfilled as you listen to it. We can always begin again in the mercy of God.
