“This is what Christ said on coming into the world: ‘You who wanted no sacrifice or oblation, prepared a body for me. You took no pleasure in holocausts or sacrifices for sin; then I said just as I was commanded in the scroll of the book: God, here I am! I am coming to obey your will.’ “ Hebrews 10: 5-10
The Scriptures we hear and read everyday are so rich that, every now and then, something jumps off the page and catches us by surprise. I had that kind of experience earlier this week when I was reflecting on today’s second reading from Hebrews. The words that the writer of Hebrews put into the mouth of Jesus Christ: “God, here I am! I am coming to do your will” echo very closely Mary’s response to Gabriel when she was invited to be the mother of Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ of God: “I am the handmaid of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38) Surely, that’s more than coincidental.
What’s more, the writer of Hebrews borrowed from Psalm 40 the words he attributed to Jesus: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire …” (Psalm 40:6-8). A fascinating characteristic of human behaviour over thousands of humanity’s early years is that people had tried to win the favour of the gods in whom they believed with every manner of sacrifice. Incalculable numbers of birds and animals, at times even young women, were slaughtered and burned in attempts to keep the gods on side. The first sacrifice we read about in the Bible was that offered by Abel. And he ended up dead, killed out of jealousy by his brother Cain! We know how Abraham was convinced that God expected him to sacrifice his dear son, Isaac. The assertion made by Jesus Christ that Temple sacrifice was not approved by the God of Israel, supported by the words of Psalm 40, would have been something of a bombshell. For starters, if taken seriously, it would have undermined the whole economy of the Temple in Jerusalem. Profit from the sale of birds and animals would have evaporated. The sacrifices of pagans to their gods was paralleled by devout Jews offering sacrifices to the one, true God of Israel.
Logically, that leads us into an exploration of what we understand by the expression we use in various ways for referring to ”doing God’s will”. Sometimes we are urged by the homilist in our Sunday liturgy “to do God’s will”, “to listen for the will of God”. It would be well for us, at the outset, to acknowledge that we do not believe in a God whose will is imposed on us. That would be a denial of our God-given freedom. Neither does our God subscribe to the belief that life’s pains, sufferings and tragedies are God’s will for us.
Subscribing to the belief that it was God’s will for Jesus to have been executed on the Cross at Golgotha is like confirmation of God’s acceptance of human barbarity. Expressions like “It’s the will of God” are sometimes bandied about by adherents to various religions in the wake of natural disasters like tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Such events are even labelled by some as punishment from God for human sinfulness. It’s that kind of thinking that was used to justify corporal punishment meted out to children by parents or teachers. Underneath that is the view that God wants to treat us as children. I have no doubt that God is intent on relating to me as an adult instead of treating me as a dependent infant. We can be sure that God wants only what is good for us, wants us to use our God-given gifts to grow into wise, loving and generous human beings who will make valuable contributions to the good of others and to our world. God does not have a grand plan tucked away somewhere for us to search for. That kind of thinking and searching does no more than raise anxiety levels in us.
As Jesus, born of Mary, grew and developed, he came to see that God’s love for humanity and for our world was boundless. He discerned that his vocation in life was to collaborate with God in realising his Father’s dream for humankind and our earthly home. Accordingly, Jesus invested himself doing the kind of thing that glorified God: healing the sick and infirm, treating the poor and overlooked with dignity and compassion, challenging those who exploited their sisters and brothers, and urging us all to relate to others in ways that mirrored his way of relating. The way in which Jesus challenged injustice and inequity and those who perpetrated them got him executed. Many of the disciples who imitated him suffered a similar fate for living with his kind of integrity. Jesus did not get involved in chasing after some divine, prearranged plan invented by God.
It would be remiss of us if we were to be silent on Mary’s visit to Elizabeth that is the centrepiece of this Sunday’s gospel-reading from Luke.
Mary’s outburst of exuberance on her meeting with Elizabeth is a verbal celebration of her pregnancy. We now call it the Magnificat, and those of us who pray the Evening Prayer of the Church, pray it every day. I like the translation of the opening lines that appears in the Common English Bible: “With all my heart I glorify the Lord! In the depths of who I am, I rejoice in God my saviour.” That prompts me to ask myself: “Have I yet discovered the depths of who I am? Do I thank God each day for all I am, have and have become?
Her song indicates that Mary was also very much aware of the fact that, in the world of her day, she was a nonentity from a shanty town of no significance, a tiny village in which tongues would have been wagging when the locals saw that she was obviously pregnant after three months away. Her song resonated with Micah’s view of Nazareth, a place and a community of people of whom she is certainly not ashamed. Moreover, what she has to say of God’s preference for her over and above the rich and powerful demonstrates not only her self-confidence but the fact that all she is and has are gift from God. There’s something there for all of us to imitate.
