I think it’s safe to say that Jesus did not have a tattoo. The Levitical law prohibited them, so they were ruled out for faithful Jews. But, if Jesus had ever thought about getting one, he might have chosen some words from the passage we hear him proclaim in the Gospel today: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” These words, written by the prophet Isaiah some 500 hundred years or so earlier, are now fulfilled, realized, in the person of Jesus. He didn’t need to inscribe them on his body because they were already written on his heart and his soul. Anointed with the Holy Spirit, Jesus announces to the people of Nazareth that he has come deliver and fulfill what God had promised to his people.
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| James Tissot, Jesus Unrolls the Book in the Synagogue (c. 1890) |
And what is that? As we heard, joy, healing, and deliverance, especially to the lowly. Throughout the Old Testament, God had told his people that he had a special love and attentiveness for the poor, the oppressed, the captive, the widow and the orphan. Now, in Jesus, those who were most downtrodden received what they most needed: the sick will be healed, the blind and the lame cured, the sinner forgiven, even the dead raised. In Jesus, in his words and gestures and actions, those who were most broken and lowly experienced the love and the mercy and the favor of God.
And still today, God extends to us those same gifts of mercy and healing in and through Christ. Wherever we feel ourselves to be tired, downtrodden, sick, sinful, broken, God wants us to receive what we need most – an encounter with the healing and deliverance of Jesus. It’s true that we don’t experience that encounter in the same way as the people of Nazareth. The body of Jesus that they saw and heard and interacted with is now, we proclaim, glorified and at the right hand of the Father in heaven. But we still have access to that same healing and deliverance, that same Jesus, just in a different way: through the graces of his Mystical Body, the Church. In the preaching of God’s Word, in its missions of mercy and justice, in its pastoral care and accompaniment, the prayers and offerings of the liturgy, above all in the vehicles of grace that are the sacraments, Jesus continues to reach out to fulfill what God has promised to those in need. The Church is the living presence of Jesus, and guided by the Holy Spirit, she continues to minister to those in need in the world today.
But who is the Church? The Pope and the bishops? Yes, partly, but not the only part. In today’s second reading, St. Paul emphasizes to the Corinthians that the Church is made up of many parts, because as the Body of Christ, it has many members. “As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body… You are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it.” So what does that mean? It means that along with the Pope and the bishops, all of us also are doing the work of the Church, because we are the Church too. We have been baptized into Christ. We have received the Holy Spirit. And so, we necessarily share in the Church’s identity and mission; we are part of that encounter between Christ and those in need.
And that, in the end, is why today’s Gospel is so important. It tells not just who Jesus is and what he is about, but also who we are and what we should be about too:“The Spirit of the Lord is upon us, because he has anointed us to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent us to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” Jesus has healed and freed us in order to become sharers in his ministry to others. We might call this passage the Church’s mission statement – the purpose we are called to be faithful to, to never to forget its relevance for us, but to inscribe it in our hearts and our souls. In Jesus, God reaches out to heal and lift up those who are in need, and he calls us by our baptism to become part of that work, the work of the Body of Christ, the whole Church. Baptized in Jesus, sharing in his Spirit, we participate in preaching God’s word, in offering prayers and sacrifices, in working for justice and offering mercy, in accompanying those who are in need and leading them to the fullness of grace in the sacraments. None of us do that by ourselves; none of us can individually represent the whole Christ. It's only by all of us, according to our own vocations, in the circumstances proper to each of us, that the ministry of the Lord is fulfilled. The Christian faith has no benchwarmers; we are all active, in the game, working together in our different ways, but united to each other, and above all united to Jesus in and through the Holy Spirit.
And still today, God extends to us those same gifts of mercy and healing in and through Christ. Wherever we feel ourselves to be tired, downtrodden, sick, sinful, broken, God wants us to receive what we need most – an encounter with the healing and deliverance of Jesus. It’s true that we don’t experience that encounter in the same way as the people of Nazareth. The body of Jesus that they saw and heard and interacted with is now, we proclaim, glorified and at the right hand of the Father in heaven. But we still have access to that same healing and deliverance, that same Jesus, just in a different way: through the graces of his Mystical Body, the Church. In the preaching of God’s Word, in its missions of mercy and justice, in its pastoral care and accompaniment, the prayers and offerings of the liturgy, above all in the vehicles of grace that are the sacraments, Jesus continues to reach out to fulfill what God has promised to those in need. The Church is the living presence of Jesus, and guided by the Holy Spirit, she continues to minister to those in need in the world today.
But who is the Church? The Pope and the bishops? Yes, partly, but not the only part. In today’s second reading, St. Paul emphasizes to the Corinthians that the Church is made up of many parts, because as the Body of Christ, it has many members. “As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body… You are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it.” So what does that mean? It means that along with the Pope and the bishops, all of us also are doing the work of the Church, because we are the Church too. We have been baptized into Christ. We have received the Holy Spirit. And so, we necessarily share in the Church’s identity and mission; we are part of that encounter between Christ and those in need.
And that, in the end, is why today’s Gospel is so important. It tells not just who Jesus is and what he is about, but also who we are and what we should be about too:“The Spirit of the Lord is upon us, because he has anointed us to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent us to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” Jesus has healed and freed us in order to become sharers in his ministry to others. We might call this passage the Church’s mission statement – the purpose we are called to be faithful to, to never to forget its relevance for us, but to inscribe it in our hearts and our souls. In Jesus, God reaches out to heal and lift up those who are in need, and he calls us by our baptism to become part of that work, the work of the Body of Christ, the whole Church. Baptized in Jesus, sharing in his Spirit, we participate in preaching God’s word, in offering prayers and sacrifices, in working for justice and offering mercy, in accompanying those who are in need and leading them to the fullness of grace in the sacraments. None of us do that by ourselves; none of us can individually represent the whole Christ. It's only by all of us, according to our own vocations, in the circumstances proper to each of us, that the ministry of the Lord is fulfilled. The Christian faith has no benchwarmers; we are all active, in the game, working together in our different ways, but united to each other, and above all united to Jesus in and through the Holy Spirit.
Friends, let’s approach this Eucharist today with hearts full of thanksgiving for what God has done for us and what he’s doing through us for others. He is allowing us, together – in many parts, but one Body – to fulfill his promise of healing and deliverance to those most in need. Let’s ask him to again renew us with his healing and mercy so that, renewed, we can be vehicles of those same gifts to those to whom he sends us.
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