Tuesday, I Week of Advent
(Isaiah 11:1-10, Luke 10:21-24)
The fact that secular historians at the time virtually ignored Jesus Christ causes a bit of embarrassment to Christians. After all, we must ask, how could people not take interest in such an extraordinary event as the resurrection?
However, beyond the first centuries of Christianity, the world did take notice. Historians began to measure time in two great epochs: “before Christ” (B.C.) and “in the year of the Lord,” which is the English translation of the Latin anno domini (A.D.). True, many writers today out of deference to non-Christians use “before the Common Era (B.C.E.) and “in the Common Era” (C.E.). But such a distinction only underscores the universal knowledge of Jesus Christ.
In the gospel today Jesus openly acknowledges his relationship with God. He is the son of the One who abides outside His own creation but maintains the dominant role in it. The learned, Jesus adds, cannot see this perhaps because the compassion that would allow anyone to offer his son to the world to be manhandled is beyond human reckoning. Jesus also intimates, however, that simple people do not notice the scandal and accept gratefully the presence of God’s anointed one in their midst.
Even though people know that time is generally portrayed with reference to Christ, some may not be aware of the unimaginable love which he came to reveal. Our role as Christians then is to testify to that love by our actions. Isaiah predicted the coming of Christ by a remarkable peace among natural enemies – wolves and lambs, lions and calves, cobras and babies. Our lives should witness to him by a similar goodwill to those whom others are leery of. We speak to the troubled and welcome the stranger. In these ways we let the world take notice of God’s love in Christ.
