Jesus light of our eyes
This week the first reading in Year I will be taken from the two canonical books of the Maccabees. These tell the story of the epic fight of the Jews against the Syrian empire. The Syrian king wanted to unify the kingdom under Hellenistic culture. Many Jews felt that their adherence to the Mosaic law isolated them and went along, but a faithful core, later most of the Jewish people, fought to defend their faith and their culture, some even sacrificing their lives for this purpose.
After Jesus had scolded the apostles for their lack of understanding and faith, Luke shows him curing the blind man. Is it perhaps to teach the apostles a lesson and showing them that they need to be healed from their blindness by faith? In any case, Jesus becomes light and gives light to the blind man. We ask our Lord to give us eyes of faith.
Reading: 1 Maccabees 1:10-15,41-43,54-57,62-64
In those days in the land of Israel, there arose some upstart Jewish insur- gents who weren’t happy about the theological conservatism of their leaders. They developed an argument that went like this: “Let’s approach the Gentiles, who live all around us, and try to negotiate a treaty without using the words One God or One Lord in it. Why? Because they have lots of gods, and since we started distancing ourselves more and more from the Gentiles, bad things have begun to happen to us.” This argument was persuasive to a lot of Jews.
These disgruntled Jews did approach Antiochus. The king was amenable but on one condition: Jews would have to abide by Gentile laws. And so the two sides agreed. The accommodators returned to Jerusalem and built a stadium, the sort one would find in every major Gentile city. They sported in the nude; hence, they felt they had to be de-circumcised. They withdrew from the holy covenant with God and generally enjoyed their Gentile life. In other words, they sold out. Nothing good came out of it, however, and the result was more bad news for the Jews.
At this point, Antiochus prepared a proclamation for his whole kingdom. His theme? That all the peoples were now one; that all his subjects must abandon their home laws for his home laws; that all tribes were now Gentile tribes and were subject to Gentile laws—as interpreted by himself, of course.
43-50 Many Jews went along with this new pagan cult, even to the point of sacrificing to idols and violating the Sabbath.
on the fifteenth day of the month Kislev in the year Casleu, King Antiochus delivered the symbol of obscene desecration—the idol of idols, the abomination of abominations, the ugliest of the ugly, the worst of the worst— upon the altar of God. In every city of Judah, a replica of the abomination was made. The Jews were expected to sacrifice to it anywhere and every- where—in their doorways, on the streets, and so on. on the twenty-fifth day of each month, the sacrifices were to be given in honor of the king’s birthday.
Many of the Jews, consulting themselves and others, decided not to follow these laws. They chose to die rather than eat pork, for example, which would profane the holy covenant with God. All of which is to say, the Jews angered just about every Gentile they met.
Gospel: Luke 18:35-43
Jesus came to the outskirts of Jericho. A blind man was sitting beside the road asking for handouts. When he heard the rustle of the crowd, he asked what was going on. They told him, “Jesus the Nazarene is going by.”
He yelled, “Jesus! Son of David! Mercy, have mercy on me!”
Those ahead of Jesus told the man to shut up, but he only yelled all the louder, “Son of David! Mercy, have mercy on me!”
Jesus stopped and ordered him to be brought over. When he had come near, Jesus asked, “What do you want from me?”
He said, “Master, I want to see again.”
Jesus said, “Go ahead—see again! Your faith has saved and healed you!” The healing was instant: He looked up, seeing—and then followed Jesus, glorifying God. Everyone in the street joined in, shouting praise to God.
Prayer
God almighty Father,
each of us too could say:
Let me see again, for I am blind to the love
that you show me in the people around me.
Let me see again,
for I am blind to your goodness and beauty,
that you reveal to me in your creation
and in the events of life.
May we too, hear from the lips of your Son:
your faith has saved you.
We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.
