We ourselves are proclaiming this good news to you that what God promised our fathers he has brought to fulfillment for us, their children, by raising up Jesus, as it is written in the second psalm,
You are my Son; this day I have begotten you.”
As the first disciples were caught up in the Spirit of Easter and Pentecost, they reread the Hebrew Scriptures and discovered prophecies about the Crucified and Risen Lord on every page. They especially knew Jesus as the fulfillment of God's word to Abraham. He is the beloved and only begotten son; the very one of whom the psalms and Isaiah spoke: "Before my birth the LORD called me, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name."
There was no old testament god to be compared with a new testament god; they were one in the Father and his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. That unfortunate myth about their differences persists among many Catholics and their priests. They ignore the Good Shepherd's sobering threats and stress the angry warnings of the Hebrew prophets. Their failure to remind the self-righteous, content, and powerful of God's demands must follow. They suppose the Lord who sacrificed his own Son is a sugar daddy, an unquestioning, unchallenging, harmless teddy bear. Their god cannot bring down the mighty or lift up the lowly. Their Christianity becomes one among many "comparative religions." That idol may soothe the anguish of some psychiatric ills but it does not address global poverty or waste.
Saint Paul's invocation of Isaiah recalls the "royal" Psalm 2 in which we hear the prophet's promise to the king:
I myself have installed my king
on Zion, my holy mountain.
I will proclaim the decree of the LORD,
he said to me, “You are my son;
today I have begotten you.
The Jewish people never forgot the peaceful reign of King David; they clung to the belief that all nations would live securely and prosperously when the Lord restores the Shepherd King's once-and-future governance. If we cannot imagine such a world today, our imagination is stunted by the choking anxieties which bear no fruit.
The threats and the promises remain for those who have ears; and we do hear them in our hearts as we practice our faith and recite our daily prayers. And because we pray for it, that Day of Just Mercy will come.
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I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.