Thursday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

In both today’s first reading and today’s gospel, our passages open with weeping. The gospel passage from Luke describes Jesus’ reaction to seeing the city of Jerusalem. It is clearly a city that Jesus loves, and filled with people for whom Jesus has great compassion. Here Jesus seems to be prophesying about the destruction of Jerusalem which was to come forty years after his own crucifixion. Notice that Jesus does not in any way delight over the impending destruction of the city that failed to recognize him as their Messiah. Rather, he weeps, the most human sign of sorrow. In the verses which follow today’s selection from Luke, we learn that the chief priests, scribes, and leaders are seeking to put Jesus to death. The irony is that while Jesus is weeping for the people, the people are ensuring this impending destruction by their choices. And yet, salvation works through this situation, both through the destruction of Jerusalem and the crucifixion of Jesus. The final story is not one of defeat, but of triumph.

This story of triumph is illustrated beautifully in today’s passage from the book of Revelation, which we continue to read as the end of the liturgical year steadily approaches. This biblical book is both mysterious and highly symbolic text, and we often find to be utterly incomprehensible. Today we have a particularly poignant passage, which has Jesus at its center. As the scene begins we find John, our letter-writer, distressed because no one is able to open a scroll. Like Jesus, John weeps until an elder tells him that the lion of Judah has triumphed and therefore can open it.

What we see in the next line, however, is not a lion, but a lamb. It seems to be a mixture of metaphors, but both designations apply to Jesus. The lion of the tribe of Judah indicates Jesus’ Jewish ancestry; he is the Jewish Messiah. And yet this lion wins salvation as a lamb, namely, a Passover lamb. In the Exodus story, the people are saved from death by having sprinkled the blood of a Passover lamb on their doorposts. So here is Jesus, the lion of the tribe of Judah made into the new and eternal Passover lamb, who will perpetually save his people from destruction. As the community of heaven worships this lamb, they praise him for his sacrifice which has saved “those from every tribe and tongue, people and nation” (Rev. 5:9).

Salvation has come through this lion and this lamb, this Jesus who wept over Jerusalem for its lack of faith and then offered his life as ransom for its people. This is our salvation, which we embrace. We are ultimately saved not by our own doing, but by the grace of God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. As this liturgical year draws to an end, we respond as does the community of heaven depicted in the first reading. We praise God for this great gift and worship the lamb through whom our salvation was won.

Today, let us take some time to praise God for his merciful love. Let us pray that we may worship him, most especially in the Eucharist when we partake of this Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, but also let us worship him in every moment, allowing our lives to become a witness of this great gift of salvation.

- Maria Morrow