Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
B. Isaiah 50: 4c – 9a. James 2: 14-18. Mark 8:
27-35. Our Lady of Grace 5:15, 9:30.
Time Magazine recently had a cover article entitled “How
the Stars were Born.” Using powerful
telescopes that can see to the outer edge of the universe – if there is an
outer edge, scientists theorize that the universe burst into existence 13.7
billion years ago. About 400, 000 years later the universe was a formless
sea of particles. Then by a mysterious process young stars gathered into
thousands of galaxies, one of which is our galaxy, the Milky Way, one star of
which is our sun, one planet of which is our earth. We do not understand
the scientific and historical origin of the universe now and we may never understand
it. The universe is too large to fit into the smallness of our minds and
the limitations of our scientific methods. We are very blessed that God
has given us the deepest truth about the origin of the universe in the first
chapters of the Book of Genesis. “In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void.”
The words of Genesis are true. They are inspired. They are God’s
Word and God’s gift to us. They are very simple words that do not attempt
to explain the way in which God created the world. The Word of God
teaches us what science can not explain and what human minds perhaps will never
understand. There is no contradiction between the Word of God and
scientific study of the origin of the universe. They are two ways of
getting at the same truth. The Book of Genesis teaches very simply what
is in fact very complicated. We are very blessed to know the simple truth as it
is taught by God’s word.
Against the background of a universe that is 13.7 billion
years old we hear the question that Jesus asks his disciples in today’s
Gospel. “Who do you say that I am?” It is a very
important question. Peter answers. “You are the Christ.” “You
are the son of the living God.” Because the universe is too big for
us to fully understand, the creator of the universe became human to teach us
and to lead us beyond the visible universe to the
To know Christ is to know the deepest meaning of the
universe. To receive Jesus in communion is to receive into our hearts the
God whom the whole vast universe is too small to contain. Who do you say
that Jesus is? Knowing who Jesus is, is
the only thing that can make us safe, comfortable and wise in a universe that
is much too big for us to understand. Jesus is the simple
truth about the immensity of God.
There is also another truth in today’s gospel that is
essential to living well in the universe that God has created.
Immediately after Peter confesses who Jesus is, Jesus begins to explain the way
that God acts and the law by which the universe moves. Jesus says, “The
Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief
priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days.”
Peter takes Jesus aside to rebuke him. Jesus replies to Peter in very
harsh words “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does,
but as human beings do.”
There is life on earth because the Sun is dying, as it gives
off heat and cools over billions of years. One day the Sun will burn
out. In the meantime we are warmed by the Sun as it gives off its heat
and warms our world, making life on earth possible. Self giving even to
the point of death is the way of life that God has written into the pattern of
birth and death scientists see in the universe. As the God of the universe
Jesus speaks clearly about this God-given pattern of life through his birth,
his death and his resurrection. In God’s plan new life comes through
self-giving love and death.
I am told that a woman who has a baby has to die to her
beautiful figure for nine months and possibly for life. A father
and a mother have to die to their own comfort and convenience in raising a
child. They have to be willing to lay down their lives for their children
every day of their lives. This is the rule of life that Jesus taught us;
it is written into the very structure of the universe. There is no friendship,
no vocation and no profession that doesn’t demand that we sacrifice ourselves
in the service of others.
In today’s gospel Jesus says very clearly, “Whoever
wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his
cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.”
Unless we are willing to lay down our lives for Jesus and for one another we do
not understand the law of the universe and we have not embraced the teaching of
Jesus Christ.
Great saints understand and live the gospel with every fiber
of their being. St. Francis of
O, Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.