PaddlingPadre

Today’s feast, as has often been remarked, is a feast that presents a bit of a puzzle. Even John seems confused, at least in St. Matthew’s account, as he asks Jesus, I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me? To which our Lord replies, with a reply that perhaps does not make everything clear, Allow it for now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

La fiesta de hoy es una fiesta que plantea un pequeño enigma. Incluso Juan parece confundido, al menos en el relato de San Mateo, cuando le pregunta a Jesús: Yo soy quien debe ser bautizado por ti, ¿y tú vienes a que yo te bautice? A lo que nuestro Señor responde, con una respuesta que tal vez no aclara todo: Haz ahora lo que te digo, porque es necesario que así cumplamos todo lo que Dios quiere.

In the Book of Genesis, after God had stayed the hand of Abraham as he prepared to sacrifice his son, the Lord spoke to Abraham and said:

Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.

En el Libro del Génesis, después de que Dios detuviera la mano de Abraham cuando estaba a punto de sacrificar a su hijo, el Señor le dijo:

Porque has hecho esto, y no me has negado a tu hijo, tu único hijo, te bendeciré y haré que tu descendencia sea tan numerosa como las estrellas del cielo y como la arena que hay en la orilla del mar. Tu descendencia poseerá las puertas de sus enemigos, y por tu descendencia todas las naciones de la tierra obtendrán bendición, porque has obedecido mi voz.

A little over 2000 years ago, the near east, and Judaea in particular, was in a state of nervous agitation. For some thirty years by this point, Herod the Great, an Edomite who had been appointed as King of the Jews by the Roman Senate, had ruled with great brutality, his reign bringing to an end a hundred years of Hasmonean, i.e. Maccabean rule, which had, for a brief time at least, achieved Jewish independence for the first time since the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon over 500 years earlier. It was in the wake of this renewed subjugation to foreign power in the form of this puppet king, a subjugation the crowning indignity of which even saw the Roman general Pompey the Great enter into the Holy of Holies, and in the aftermath of a series of civil wars, that Herod had, with Roman backing, achieved in his little client kingdom a sort of murderous peace.

Hace poco más de 2000 años, la tierra de Judea se encontraba en un estado de agitación nerviosa. Durante unos treinta años, Herodes el Grande, un edomita que había sido nombrado rey de los judíos por el Senado romano, había gobernado con gran brutalidad, poniendo fin a cien años de dominio macabeo, una familia que, al menos durante un breve periodo de tiempo, había logrado la independencia judía por primera vez desde la destrucción de Jerusalén por Babilonia más de 500 años antes. Fue en medio de esta renovada subyugación al poder extranjero en forma de este rey, una subyugación cuya indignidad culminó con la entrada del general romano Pompeyo el Grande en el Santo de los Santos, y tras una serie de guerras civiles, que Herodes, con el respaldo romano, logró en su pequeño reino cliente una especie de paz asesina.

What did you go out to the desert to see? In asking this question of the crowds, with reference to John, Jesus is effectively asking them where their minds and hearts are. Because this is something we must keep in mind: that when it comes to our perceiving something, our hearing or seeing something, whether that be an object or an idea or a message or anything, we have to consider not only the thing that we perceive, but also our ability to perceive it, which can be affected by so many different things.

¿Qué fueron ustedes a ver en el desierto? Al hacer esta pregunta a la multitud, refiriéndose a Juan, Jesús les está preguntando en realidad dónde están sus mentes y sus corazones. Porque hay algo que debemos tener presente: cuando se trata de percibir algo, de oír o ver algo, ya sea un objeto, una idea, un mensaje o cualquier otra cosa, debemos tener en cuenta no solo lo que percibimos, sino también nuestra capacidad para percibirlo, que puede verse afectada por muchos factores diferentes.

In days to come, the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills, and all nations shall stream toward it. So speaks the prophet Isaiah in our first reading, and if we would understand this prophecy rightly, we must first understand what it is to which the prophet is referring. The mountain of the Lord’s house, of course, is Mount Zion in Jerusalem, the mountain, or to be more honest, the hill, upon which the Temple was constructed, where the presence of God mysteriously dwelt. This mountain, or, again, this hill, is rather modest. You can see far taller mountains in the distance when you’re driving down Cedar Bluff. But the prophet’s point is not that this mountain will be raised physically higher than these mountains – a new Everest is not going to erupt from Jerusalem – but instead, Mount Zion, the mountain of the Lord’s presence, will, because of the Lord’s presence there, be exalted far above all other mountains, and it will be recognized as such by all the nations, who will subsequently stream towards it saying, “Come, let us climb the LORD’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.”