The Kingdom of God is Among You"

Today's Mass Readings

“Light from light, true God from true God,” we pray when we recite the Creed each Sunday during Mass. This line from the Creed comes out of our first reading today from Wisdom. In Wisdom’s poetic language, we hear that wisdom “is the refulgence of eternal light, the spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of his goodness.” As Christians, we look at this beautiful description and recognize Jesus, who is the image of God’s goodness – light from light, true God from true God. This light imagery appears later as well: “For she is fairer than the sun and surpasses every constellation of the stars. Compared to light, she takes precedence…” Today’s passage from Wisdom ends by saying that wisdom reaches from end to end mightily and governs all things well. Then in the Gospel, we hear Jesus continuing to explain the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God, says Jesus, is among you. Might Jesus be indicating that HE is the Kingdom of God? It is he that reaches from end to end and governs all things – even though it does not appear this way to the Pharisees who question him. Jesus is Wisdom, light from light, true God from true God.

And so there is a connection to light in this passage as well; Jesus says that he, like lightning, will light up the sky from one side to the other. Yet before this could all be understood, Jesus had to suffer and be rejected. And, indeed, it is in Jesus’ death and resurrection that Christians have come to reflect on him as the image of God – light form light, true God from true God. Now we can put these passages together, from Wisdom and Luke, and see that Jesus as the Kingdom of God among us. Out of suffering and death comes this brilliant light, like lightning flashes, fairer than the sun, the refulgence of eternal light.

We turn to Jesus as our God, recognizing his divinity that this Wisdom language indicates. And yet we also turn to Jesus as our brother whose humanity exhibited through his suffering and death made possible our redemption. As we seek to live out our faith, let us keep Jesus in mind. His divinity, our light, enlightens our world, enabling us to see ourselves and others as adopted children of God who are redeemed. His humanity in his suffering and rejection, meanwhile, keeps us grounded. Let us pray that Jesus our light continue to illuminate our lives, enabling us to share in his suffering and rejection while also seeing beyond it to our ultimate sharing in the Kingdom of God.

- Maria Morrow