Homily for the First Sunday of Lent (Cycle B)
Based on Mk. 1:12-15 (Gospel), Gn. 9:8-15 (1stRdng.), and 1 P.
3:18-22(2ndRdng.)
From the series
“Reflections and Teachings from the Desert”
MINISTRY OF ANGELS
The first part of today’s gospel reading (Temptation
in the Wilderness) ends with: “He was
with the wild beasts, and the angels looked after him (Mk. 1:13).The
mention of wild beast in this gospel could also be found in the first reading
(Gn. 9:10), and, therefore, the word ‘wild beast’ could be common to these two
readings. But, in this piece, we have focused on the discussion of angels which
are found common also in the first and third readings for this First Sunday of
Lent, and have titled this piece to their ministry.
The mention of “angels” could be found in
the following verses and footnotes:
Mk. 1:13 - And he remained there for forty days and was
tempted by Satan. He was with the wild beasts, and the angels looked after him.
Job. 1:6 - One day the Sons of God came to attend on Yahweh,
and among them was Satan.
Incidentally, Satan, a fallen angel,
belongs to this category of angels. We find the mention of Satanin this episode
of the temptation in the wilderness and also in Jb. 1:6+, as parallel of Mk.
1:13, with the mention of the sons of God for angels: “One day the Sons of God came to attend on Yahweh, and among them was
Satan.”
Regarding the identity of the sons of God,
footnote f of Job 1:6 says:“ConferJob 38:7; Gn. 6:1-4; Ps. 29:1; 82:1; 89:6.
These are superhuman creatures that make up God’s court and council. They are
identified with the angels (LXX translates ‘the angels of God’).”
On Satan’s identity, footnote g of Job 1:6
also says: “That is ‘the Adversary’. A legal term, apparently, cf. Ps. 109:6,
but becoming increasingly more common for an evil being, Zc 3:1-2 and
eventually a proper name, 1 Ch. 21:1, of the power of evil, cf. Lk. 10:18. In
Rv. 12:9; 20:2 it is synonymous with the Dragon, the Devil, the Serpent, cf.
Gn. 3:1+, alternative names or personifications of the evil spirit. Here Satan,
like the serpentof Gn. 3, tempts man to sin.”
The angels are also called the sons of God
in Job 1:6. They are superhuman creatures that make up God’s court and council.
In 1 Peter 3:22 of today’s Second Reading,
mention of angels and two of their kinds that administering God’s court is
made. This verse says: “…who has entered
heaven, and is at God’s right hand,l now that he has made the angels and
Dominions and Powers his subjects”( 1 P. 3:22).
Parallel texts of this verse also mention
the kind of angels administering God’s court. They are the following:
Ac. 2:33 - Now raised to the heights by God’s right hand, s
he has received from the father the Holy Spirit, who was promised, t and what
you see and hear is the outpouring of that Spirit.
Ep. 1:20-21 - At work in Christ, when he used it to raise
him from the dead and to, make him sit at his right hand in heaven, far above
every Sovereignty, Authority, Power or Dominion,t or any other name that can be
named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. (See also Is. 52:13;
Col. 2:12; Ac 2:33+; 1 P. 3:22; Col 1:16; 2:15; Ph. 2:9).
Col. 2:15 - And so he got rid of the Sovereignties and
Powers, and paraded them in public, behind him in his triumphal procession.
Footnote t of Ep. 1:20-21 – “Names traditional in Jewish literature for angelic hierarchies.“
Footnote m of Col. 2:15 –
“The tradition is that the
Law was brought to Moses by angels, Ga.
3:19+, and by honoring them as the lawgivers, cf. v. 18, people have been
distracted from the true creator. Now that God has put the regime of that Law
to an end, by means of the crucifixion,
these angelic powers have lost the one thing that had given them power ,
so they too must acknowledge that Christ has triumphed over them.”
The mention of God’s heavenly court leads
us to the consideration of the First Reading taken from Genesis 9:8-15. In this
reading, two elements are worth noting: first, regarding the rainbow that
decorates God’s court in the heavens, and, secondly, the Flood.
Regarding the rainbowthat decorates God’s
court in the heavens, the following verses and footnotes contain the mention of
the rainbow:
Footnote d of Genesis 9:9:“The Covenant with Noah, the
rainbow its emblem, involves the whole creation. Abraham’s covenant, whose sign
is to be circumcision, embraces his descendants only, Gn. 17: under Moses the
Covenant is confined to Israel and brings with it an obligation: fidelity to
the Law, Ex. 19:5; 24:7-8, and to the Sabbath observance in particular, Ex.
31:16-17.”
Gn. 9:13 -I set my bow in the clouds and it shall be a sign
of the Covenant between me and the earth.
Parallel texts for this verse that contain the mention of
the rainbow are the following:
Ezk. 1:28 - like a bow in the clouds on rainy days; that is
how the surrounding light appeared. It was something that looked like the glory
of Yahweh I looked and prostrated myself, and I heard a voice speaking.
Footnote r of Ezk. 1:28 - “The ‘glory of Yahweh’, Ex.
24:16+, is normally described as a bright cloud, Ex. 16:10; Ezk. 43:1-5; here
the cloud is accompanied by a brilliant, luminous silhouette in human shape.“
Rv. 4:3 - …and the Person sitting there looked like a
diamond and a ruby. There was a rainbow encircling the throne, and this looked
like an emerald. B
Footnote b of Revelation 4:3 says: “Literally, ‘the
Enthroned One looked like a jasper stone (diamond) and a sardion (ruby) and the rainbow round the throne looked like a smaragdos (emerald)’. John is careful
not to describe God anthropomorphically; he prefers to give an impression of
light. The whole scene draws heavily on Ezk. 1 and 10; cf. also Is. 6.”
Gn. 9:13 - When I gather the clouds over the earth and the
bow appears in the clouds..
Parallel text for this verse is the following:
Si. 43:11-12 - See the rainbow and praise its maker, so
superbly beautiful in its splendor. Across the sky it forms a glorious arc
drawn by the hands of the Most High.
Si.50:7 - Like the sun shining on the Temple of the Most
High, like the rainbow gleaming against the brilliant clouds.
The Flood, besidesbeing mentioned in the
First Reading, is also found in today’s Second Reading taken from First Peter 3:18-22.
In 1 P. 3: 19-21, we find stated;“And in
the spirit, he went to the spirits in prison.Now it was long ago, when Noah was
still building that ark which saved only a small group of eight people ‘by
water’ and when God was still waiting patiently, that these spirits refused to
believe. That water is a type of baptism
which saves you now, and which is not the washing off of physical dirt but a
pledge made to God from a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ…”
In this reading, mention of the “spirits
in prison” is made (verse 19), which is explained by its footnote h, which
says: “Probably alludes to the descent of
Christ to Hades, cf. Mt. 16:18+, between his death and resurrection, Mt. 12:40;
Ac. 2:24.31; Rm. 10:7; Ep. 4:9; Heb. 13:20. He went there ‘in spirit’, cf. Lk.
23:46, or (better) ‘according to the spirit’, Rm. 1:4+, his ‘flesh’ being dead
on the cross, Rm. 8:3f. The ‘spirits in prison’ to whom he ‘preached’ (or
proclaimed) salvation are identified by some writers are the chained demons
mentioned in the Book of Enoch (some texts are corrected so as to make Enoch,
and not Christ, preach to them). This spirits have thus been put under the
authority of Christ as Kyrios v. 22, cf. Ep. 1:21f; Ph. 2:8-10; and this
subjection to him is to be confirmed later on, 1 Co. 15:24f. Other writers
suggest these the spirits of people who were drowned in the Flood as a
punishment but who are now summoned by God’s ‘patience’ to eternal life’, cf.
4:6. Mt. 27:52f is a similar episode of liberation by Christ between his death
and resurrection, only here it is the saints, the holy ones who were waiting
for him, that are liberated, cf. Heb. 11:39f, 12:23; and are given the freedom
of the holy (the heavenly) city. The descent of Christ to Hades is one of the
articles in the Apostle’s Creed.”
These ‘spirits in prison“, mentioned in 1
P. 3:19, are therefore the chained demons down in Hell that were Satan’s
cohorts.
The last thing to discuss in today’s
homily is concerning Noah’s Flood mentioned in the First and second Readings,
which 1 P. 3:21 says: “That water is a
type of baptism which saves you now, and which is not the washing off of
physical dirt j but a pledge k made to God from a good conscience, through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ…”
Footnotes I, j and k of 1 P 3:20-21, says
the following:
i – Lit. ‘by water, to which the antitype is the baptism’ i.e. that which
was prefigured by the ‘type’ (cf 1Co 10:6+). Here the ‘type of baptism is
Noah’s Flood.
j – As a few were saved from drowning, the
Flood is taken to symbolize the O.T. purificatory rites that were, almost without exception,
limited to an external ‘bodily’ purity, whereas the baptism by which a person
is reborn can have no limits as to its efficacy.
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