INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Year A - First Sunday After Christmas

 

ISAIAH 63:7-9.   This is the beginning of a long prayer of intercession continuing to 64:12.  These verses speak of God's love for and faithfulness to Israel. Through many distressing periods of their history, God's presence among them gave them assurance of God's favour. God’s frequent and direct initiative in delivering Israel from difficulty was the basis for this trust.

 

PSALM 148.    This is one of five "hallelujah hymns" with which the Book of Psalms closes. All creation and every nation are summoned to praise the God of Israel.

 

HEBREWS 2:10-18.      The Letter to the Hebrews is not really a letter at all, but a theological essay by some unknown leader of the early Christian church. This brief passage affirms the birth of Jesus, known in Christian doctrine as the Incarnation.

   

The sharing of human flesh and blood by the Son of God is 'proved' by texts quoted from the Psalm 22:22 and Isaiah 8:17-18. Jesus' suffering and death are cited as both his actual human experience and the fulfilment of his divine mission. The author is thus preparing for his main theme that Jesus is both the great high priest and redeeming sacrifice according to ancient Hebrew ritual.

 

MATTHEW 2:13-23.    The flight of the holy family into Egypt, Herod's slaughter of the innocent children of Bethlehem, and the return of the holy family to Nazareth did not stand alone in  Matthew’s narrative. He emphasized the significance of these three episodes in the early life of Jesus by linking them to texts from the Hebrew Scriptures.   

    

These were not merely literary devices, but affirmed a central theme of early Christian doctrine: Jesus is the Messiah promised to Israel by all the great prophets. In other words, Matthew interpreted the birth of Jesus through the eyes of a devout Jew who firmly believed that the Messiah had come.

 

 

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS

 

ISAIAH 63:7-9.   The poems and prayers by the unnamed prophet of Israel’s Babylonian exile in the 6th century BC and a later group of his disciples were subsequently attached to the collection of Isaiah’s prophecies. This passage comes from what some scholars call Third Isaiah (chs. 56-66), though this designation is best characterized as an oversimplification. Passages appear all through the Book of Isaiah which are obviously the hand of a later redaction than either of the 8th or the early 6th century prophets (e.g. chs. 24-27). This passage probably dates from the middle of the 6th century BCE not too long after the destruction of the temple and the exile. 

         

The reading forms the beginning of an extended prayer (63:7-64:12) and possibly a liturgy. The whole attitude of the prayer parallels that found in  Lamentations and similar laments such as Pss. 36, 74, 77 and  79. Yet despite its somber mood, the excerpt expresses trust in God based on the gracious acts of God toward Israel. Most important of these acts according to these lines was God’s choice of Israel as God’s people and God’s saving intervention in the nation’s history. 

         

The wording of this passage describe the relationship of God to Israel as one of intense and steadfast love (vs. 7). The depth of this love comes dramatically to the fore in the KJV and RSV readings of vs. 9a which the NRSV and NEB soften by attempting to correct the corrupted Hebrew text. This only lessens the power of one of the strongest texts in the OT that conveys the sublime thought that God is afflicted by the suffering of those in distress.

         

As we recover from our annual convulsion consumerism during which our indulgence denigrates the name of the Christ who came in the humility and poverty of a peasant family who became refugees, such a text could provide us with an appropriate purgative.

 

 

PSALM 148.   This hymn of praise is the third of five ending the Psalter and given the name of the “Hallel Psalms” from the Hebrew words with which each begins, ends and frequently resounds antiphonally throughout the hymnThe jubilant outburst of song summons the whole of creation to celebrate.

         

In biblical times people believed that the universe was constructed on three levels: the heavens above, the deep sea below and the earth that they saw around them. As the understanding of the spiritual nature of the divine being developed, this cosmology made it theologically necessary to introduce intermediary angels, “the heavenly host,” between the transcendent, spiritual Creator and the physical creation.

         

Even though the discoveries of modern astronomy and our ventures into space have given us a totally different view of the universe, this ancient cosmology still influences our language and our worship. One has to wonder to what extent this has contributed to the disbelief of many people who sincerely reject literalist interpretations and expressions of faith as found in many scripture passages, prayers and sermons.

         

For this psalmist of the postexilic period the centre of the universe was the temple in Jerusalem to which all peoples were summoned to sing God’s praise (vss.12-13). The faithful of Israel, however, still had preeminence (vs.14). Universalism had not yet captured the imaginations of religious minds; nor has it yet done so as fundamentalists in all religious traditions continue to insist.

 

 

HEBREWS 2:10-18.     The so-called letter to the Hebrews reads more like a theological essay drawing heavily on Old Testament scriptures to prove the supremacy of Jesus. It attempts to counter ideas from Hebrew religious traditions at a time, possibly before the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70 CE. It was directed to Jewish Christians who doubted that Jesus was the Messiah and were tempted to return to their former faith and ways of worshiping.

         

On the other hand, cogent arguments can be made for a date later in the lst century when the church was under attack from both rabbis of the Pharisees and Roman officials during the reign of Domitian (81-96 CE). Claims that the letter contains a theological viewpoint of a Hellenistic Christianity in the post-apostolic age similar to the Revelation of John and the first letter of Clement of Rome have strong support.

         

This passage emphasizes that Jesus’ human nature qualified him to atone for the sins of others by offering himself as the perfect sacrifice and so “bringing many sons to glory” i.e. to a saving relationship with God. Yet though Jesus is described as “the pioneer of salvation,” (vs.10), he is not the hero who leads the way of moral excellence. Rather, his humanity rests on the fact that it was God who initiated the incarnation of the Son of God that led ultimately to the sanctifying sacrifice of the cross (vs.11).

         

The author then turned to the OT scriptures and found what he perceived as relevant quotations proving that Jesus is the Messiah. Psalm 22, the source of the first quotation (Heb.2:12 is from Ps.22:22), had wide use as a messianic psalm. Neither this quotation nor the one from Isaiah 8:17-18 (vs.13) have any connection whatsoever with Jesus. Perhaps they were more convincing to the recipients of the letter. They appear to be used merely to reinforce the identification of Jesus with his human brethren and children of God by simply repetition of those words from the LXX. Yet they do demonstrate how the early church used the Hebrew Scriptures from a literalist point of view.

         

The thinking in the latter part of this passage seems even more convoluted. It attempts to answer the question of why Jesus needed to share our human experience. The idea that the devil held the power of death and so held all humans in the thrall of fear were current in Jewish and Christian thought at the time. This fear focused on the consequences of judgment after death. Access to God through worship had the intention of dealing with this fear. By sharing our human experience in every respect, Jesus served the liturgical function of bring both priest and sacrifice in this transaction. He was, the author claims, “a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God” (vs.17) and being one who “himself had suffered and been tempted” (vs.18) so offered the perfect atoning sacrifice for all.

         

As confusing as the thought of this passage may be to our modern minds, the passage does weave together in a theological tapestry the continuity and discontinuity of Judaism and Christianity as well the divine and human natures of the Saviour of the world.

 

 

MATTHEW 2:13-23.  The hypothesis has been proposed that Matthew created midrashim stories concerning the birth of Jesus to interpret the passages of the Hebrew scriptures in which he found references or prophecies about the fulfilment of Israel’s hopes for the promised Messiah. This excerpt tells of God intervening to prevent the death of the infant Christ Child in Herod’s massacre of the children of Bethlehem. The incident fulfills the prophecy in Jeremiah 31:15 (v.18). However, Jeremiah’s oracle actually dealt with the lamentations of the Ephraimites being led into exile after the fall of Judah and Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 BCE. 

         

A further allusion to the Hebrew scriptures occurs in the warning to Joseph in vs.20 derived from Exodus 4:18-20. There Moses was called to return to Egypt to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land. Again in v.23, Joseph chose to make a home for his family in Nazareth in fulfilment of another supposed prophecy from an unknown source. It may also be an allusion to Judges 13:5 or perhaps Isaiah 11:1 or 53:2.

         

The real point of the story is to portray Jesus as the Messiah by quoting Hebrew scriptures to show how Jesus fulfilled several prophecies and how the Messiah could come from Nazareth. As originally written, these prophecies did not have this intent. We can never know whether Matthew found these stories circulating in the community for whom he wrote or composed these stories himself. We can determine, however, his theological purpose here and throughout the gospel: to portray Jesus as the Messiah come not as Moses to promulgate a new law, but to initiate a new people of God in whom the salvation-history of Israel is fulfilled and among whom all people of all nations, Jew or Gentile, are welcome on the same basis of faithful discipleship.

 

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