3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023
Isaiah 8:23-9:3 1 Cor 1:10-13 Matthew 4:12-23
“Land of Zebulun! Land of Naphtali! Way of the sea on the far side of the Jordan, Galilee of the nations! The people that lived in darkness has seen a great light; on those who dwell in the land and shadow of death a light has dawned”. (Isaiah 8:23)
Jesus had arrived!
John, Baptist was now silenced and behind prison walls. It was time for Jesus to begin. What He wanted to proclaim was different. It was to be a reflection of the Kingdom of Heaven.Saint Matthew, our evangelist for this liturgical year describes the work of Jesus as progressing through stages. Saint Matthew will take us through these stages of the Mission of Jesus as we celebrate our Sunday liturgies throughout the Year.
We begin today with the first stage when Jesus announced that the kingdom of heaven was close at hand. The first thing that Jesus does is to choose those who would work for the Kingdom of Heaven. Those who worked closest with him would be called Apostles. These would be the core of the Kingdom, spreading the Good News and performing works of healing and Mercy. As soon as the crowds start to follow Jesus and the Apostles, Jesus brings them up a mountain and gives them the Charter for living as His disciples – the Beatitudes, which we will hear next Sunday.
The next stage of His ministry would be given over to teaching and healing. It was because of his healing of people and driving out of evil spirits that many people began to follow Jesus. And, once they came to follow Him He taught them mainly through parables, simple stories to illustrate what the Kingdom of God was all about. There was also the difficult teaching about suffering and the Cross and Jesus worked closely with Peter and other Apostles to make sure that they understood his New Way and that they would carry on his work when He had returned to the Father. Finally he spoke of the glorious future of the Kingdom when He would come again in glory.
So, back to today’s Gospel Reading! When Jesus began to tell the people that there is another way, his first words were about letting go of the old sinful ways of life.
“Repent …let the old hatreds go … put on a new mind … enter a new system of values … be born again of water and the Holy Spirit”.
The accepted values and standards of the day are to be turned upside down. The greatest in this Kingdom would not be the ones who received most – but the ones who gave most!In this Kingdom the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
This was Jesus preaching his dream. There is another way because the world is meant to be a mirror of God’s love - the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
To realise this dream we must let worldly values be turned upside down. We must Repent.