Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s first reading is from the Letter to the Hebrews. Scholars debate over whether or not this letter was actually written by Paul or by someone else, mainly because it seems so different from the other letters we are used to reading and hearing. Today’s excerpt is a bit complicated but it is rich and actually quite beautiful in its message. It asks the question about the difference between humans and angels, saying that it was humans to whom God “crowned with glory and honor.” The is an old Jewish story that when God made Adam, he presented his creation to the angels, telling them to bow down in worship of the image of God Adam bore. This letter evokes the same feeling of the absolute dignity and worth of the human being.
What about Jesus, the letter then asks, because Jesus did not appear with such glory and honor? In his suffering, however, Jesus demonstrates the totality with which he takes on the human experience. The letter says that “He who consecrates [meaning Jesus] and those who are being consecrated [meaning the rest of us] all have one origin.” That origin, of course, is God—a God who loves us and bestows grace upon us.
The Christmas season is finally over, which can be quite a relief! And yet, Christmas lives on in this Letter to the Hebrews. Christmas is about God taking flesh, which is essentially about the ability of humanity to be redeemed. We are not, says God in Christ, beyond redemption. In fact, humanity becomes the very way by which God redeems the world. So when we feel the least like Jesus—when we fail in our relationships, or when we are less than who we should be—we should remind ourselves that we share an origin with Christ. And it is Christ who points the way back to the God of love.
—Katherine Schmidt