Third Sunday of\nOrdinary Time [A]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
January 26, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matthew 4:12-17<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the arrest\nof John the Baptist, Jesus begins His public ministry. Jesus left Nazareth, His\nhometown, and moved to a more crowded and bigger town, Capernaum. Crudely\nspeaking, Jesus did urbanization. This strategic move of Jesus was to support\nHis mission. With a dense population and with better access to neighboring\ntowns, Jesus could minister to more people in a more efficient way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Jesus\u2019\nmovement from Nazareth to Capernaum is not just about practicality and\npreaching strategy. Jesus was fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah. \u201cLand of\nZebulun and land of Naphtali\u2026the people who sit in darkness have seen a great\nlight\u2026\u201d For many of us, Zebulun and Naphtali do not make any sense, and we tend\nto skip these verses. Yet, for the first-century Jews, this prophecy is a\ngame-changer because God will gather the lost twelve tribes of Israel, and\nre-establish the Kingdom of Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let us go back\nto the Old Testament a little bit. In 2 Samuel 7, God promised that the throne\nof David will last forever, however after the reign of Salomon, David\u2019s son,\nthe kingdom of David was divided into two. After some hundred years, these two\nkingdoms, one by one, were destroyed by the enemies, and the twelve tribes were\nscattered among the Gentiles. Among the tribes of Israel, only Judah, and\nBenjamin were able to return to the land of Israel, while the rest, including\nZebulun and Naftali, were lost. Jewish people in the time of Jesus knew well\nthat one of the missions of the expected Messiah is to restore the Kingdom and\nto gather the lost tribes of Judah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus, the\nMessiah, came indeed to fulfill this expectation, and no wonder if the first\nthing He did was to preach that the Kingdom of God is at hand. It is called the\nKingdom of God because it is the Kingdom promised by God, built by God, and\ngoverned by God. It is the restored kingdom of David, and much bigger than the\nfirst David\u2019s kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, there\nis a fundamental difference between David\u2019s kingdom and Jesus\u2019. David\u2019s kingdom\nwas established to fight Israel\u2019s enemies. His kingdom was filled with\nnobilities, generals, and armies. It was characterized by political rivalry, a\nstruggle for power, and treachery. Finally, it is no different from other\nkingdoms in the world. All is about \u201cgame of thrones\u201d. And like other earthly\nkingdoms, the kingdom of David was bound to crush as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Kingdom of\nGod basically goes in the opposite direction. It is the Kingdom built upon\nfaith in God, service, and love for others, even to the point of sacrifice.\nWhen we were baptized, we become the members of this Kingdom, and in fact, we\nare transformed into the children of God, calling Him as our Father. However,\ndespite being heirs to the Kingdom, we are not princes, lords or generals. We\nare servants and lovers. The higher our positions in the Kingdom, the more love\nand service we shall render. That is why the priests do not have wives, because\nthey are busy serving the people! No wonder St. John of the Cross would say,\n\u201cin the twilight of life, God will not judge us on our earthly possessions and\nhuman success, but rather on how much we have loved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Valentinus\nBayuhadi Ruseno<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Third Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]
\nJanuary 26, 2020
\nMatthew 4:12-17<\/p>\n
After the arrest of John the Baptist, Jesus begins His public ministry. Jesus left Nazareth, His hometown, and moved to a more crowded and bigger town, Capernaum. Crudely speaking, Jesus did urbanization. This strategic move of Jesus was to support His mission. With a dense population and with better access to neighboring towns, Jesus could minister to more people in a more efficient way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[57,62],"class_list":["post-9154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-renungan","tag-english","tag-gospel-reflection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9155,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9154\/revisions\/9155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}