Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Welcome to the Blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the Word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: The Lord be with you.
Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Glory to you, O Lord. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem saying, where is the newborn King of the Jews? We saw his star and its rising and have come to do him homage.
When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled and all Jerusalem with him, assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
They said to him, in Bethlehem of Judea. For thus it has been written through the prophet and you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, since from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.
Then Herod called the Magi secretly and ascertained from them the time of the star's appearance.
He sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word that I too may go and do him homage.
After their audience with the king, they set out and behold the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary, his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way, the Gospel of the Lord.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Praise to you, Lord Jesus.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: People who knew both of us often said that my father and I were alike.
We were probably the two best looking men in the country at the time, and also we never would surrender an argument.
Well, what that tended to lead to, especially during my later teen years, was that we would constantly butt heads.
And even though we were getting along at times my mother would leave the house during Lions games because she couldn't handle the yelling that would go on.
But it got really bad my senior year of high school and it seemed like there was literally nothing we could ever agree on and we would battle a lot.
Well, I went off to college, I left in August and I only came back for a short period of time at Christmas, then left again and didn't Come back till May.
When I got back in May, I learned rather quickly and was amazed by the fact of how much my dad learned over that year.
Now, of course, he probably didn't learn very much, but I maybe matured just enough to recognize that most of what he told me was actually right. And he knew a lot more than I was willing to admit when I was a high school senior.
That was an epiphany. I got to see him in a way I hadn't seen him before.
Well, in this gospel, the whole world is set up to see the Messiah in a way the world hadn't seen him before.
The people had certain assumptions about what the Messiah would be like and how the Messiah would change the world. And virtually all of their ideas were very much of this world. That the Messiah would be much like King David, someone who would restore the glory of the nation of Israel, who would throw off the yoke of Roman oppression and make them a proud country once again.
Yet the epiphany that begins to happen in this gospel and continues for us every day is that the Messiah we received was vastly different.
Rather than being an earthly king, He's a heavenly king.
Rather than his kingdom being a small nation in the Middle east, his kingdom is eternal. And it's this whole existence that we're a part of.
And that rather than throwing off the yoke of Roman oppression, He threw off the yoke of sin and darkness.
And the lesson that we're really called upon to learn from that reality is that our expectations of God never live up to the reality of God. That God's love for us is always bigger than we can imagine.
God's mercy is always broader than we can wrap our minds around.
And God's presence is so intimately close to us, there are times we can't even see Him. He's so close.
What we receive from God's love is always better than we expect.
