SECOND SUNDAY of Ordinary Time Cycle A Jan 15, 2022

 SECOND SUNDAY of Ordinary Time  Cycle A        Jan 15, 2022

I would like for you to picture Jesus in your mind.  Maybe some picture you have seen.  We’ve all seen picture of Jesus. 

Some time ago, that paradigm of Biblical and theological scholarship,  the magazine, Popular Mechanics, tried, as best they could, to have forensic artists reconstruct what Jesus would have looked like.   They wanted an accurate picture of Jesus as possible.   //

Now perhaps you have a picture of Jesus in your head.  Maybe it is based on pictures you have seen of Jesus dressed in beautiful robes of sumptuous blue and red cloth, immaculately coifed with long flowing golden hair, beard and mustache, and radiant white skin.  

Well, that is NOT what the forensic artists came up with.  First of all, in Palestine women wore long hair but men wore their hair short.  St Paul, in 1 Cor. 11:14 says that long hair on a man is a disgrace.  So, Jesus did not have long hair.  Sorry.   {That’s why I keep my hair short.}

Secondly, Jesus did not dress in luxurious clothing.  He wore what the common people wore, a simple tunic, similar to an alb, the white robe that a priest or deacon or our servers wear.  Since Jesus did not have an extensive wardrobe, and did not use deodorant, and He lived in a hot, sweaty climate, Jesus probably smelled like everyone else around Him.  If he came in and sat down in church today, you would move to the other end of the pew. 

And most assuredly Jesus was not white.  He was like everyone else in Palestine in those days, brown or olive colored. 

When the forensic artists finished their probable portrait of Jesus, the caption in the Popular Mechanics magazine was “you wouldn’t want to sit next to him on an airplane.”   He looked kind of shady or scary by today’s standards.

I mention all this because getting Jesus right is difficult.  It was even difficult for John the Baptist as we hear in today’s Gospel.  Twice in our short passage John exclaims, “I did not know him.”  

Now if John the Baptist, who was sent specifically to prepare the way for Jesus, had a hard time recognizing and knowing Jesus, perhaps we might have some difficulty too. 

We might know a lot ABOUT Jesus.  That knowledge is fairly simple to acquire.  There are plenty of books and bible study resources to tell you ABOUT Jesus.  But that is not the same as knowing Jesus.  We don’t want information primarily.  What we want is a relationship with Jesus, knowing Him in Himself.

You come to know Jesus pretty much the same way you come to know anyone else:  you spend time together.  You talk with each other.  You laugh and cry together.  You do things together.  You share life together.       //

Jesus is with us now.  Jesus is with us in our gathering together as His Body.  Jesus is with us in His Word in the Scriptures, especially in the Gospel.  Jesus is with us in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist.  Jesus is with us through the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

John the Baptist gives us some help in today’s Gospel.  Twice John exclaims: “I did not know Him.”   I think it is important to recognize that we DON’T know Jesus in order to start clearing away the accumulated clutter of what our culture and society have told us about Jesus.  We need to let Jesus be Himself and not impose pre-conceived notions on Him.  We need to open ourselves to let Jesus lead us in revealing Himself to us:      through prayer, through the Scriptures, through worship, through interactions with other people, especially other believers. 

Just as a relationship with a long-time friend, or a beloved spouse, matures and develops over time, so the relationship of each one of us with Jesus should develop, grow, deepen, mature over time.   Jesus doesn’t change very much, but we do, as we enter deeper and deeper into relationship with Him. 

We continue to grow, just as John the Baptist did in our Gospel today.  And hopefully, with the grace of the Holy Spirit, we will come to proclaim along with John the Baptist, “Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.”

God bless!