Word to the Wise
Wednesday, January 21, 2026 - Wednesday in the 2nd Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Sam 17:32-33, 37, 40-51 and Mark 3:1-6]The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death. [Mark]
JANUARY 21 ST. AGNES, virgin and martyr
When I was a boy so many years ago, the Saturday afternoon cowboy movies at the local theater were a regular feature. It was always easy to see who the "good guys" and the "bad guys" were. The good guys wore a white hat and the bad guys wore a black hat (or at least the leading characters did). The good v. evil theme was always there. The Gospel According to Mark makes it clear which is which early on. It's Jesus against the leading authorities of the Jewish community at the time: scribes, Pharisees, Herodians, Sadducees. Jesus is pictured as gathering a popular following which becomes a threat to those authorities. The Old Testament promise of a "Messiah" meant different things to different people in Jesus' time, but Jesus did not seem to meet the standard. A wandering carpenter/preacher, no matter how popular, could not be a messiah. To add to the suspense, Jesus tries to keep his true identity a secret until his death and resurrection!
The "true identity" of Jesus was a topic that would occupy the Christian community for a long time, culminating in the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, which defined our understanding of Jesus as both God and Man. We in our time have the benefit of two thousand years of reflection on the mystery of God's intervention in human history. But each of us will develop our own "portrait" of Jesus as we read the gospels. Right now, we have the Gospel According to Mark in which Jesus challenges us to decide whose side are we going to be on! AMEN
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