+ In the gospel passage we see Jesus lamenting over the city of Jerusalem, weeping over it and prophesying its soon to be accomplished destruction – because it failed to recognize what made for peace, it failed to recognize him as the one, supreme peacemaker! It would not be a pleasant site by any means. The barbarians would come and completely destroy the city and its temple and kill many people! But it will not have been because they had not been warned – by the very Lord of the Universe, the Prince of Peace, himself!
The first reading today also speaks of a rather barbaric way of doing things, this time in favor of God. Mattathias and his sons refused to follow the King's order and sacrifice to his gods in his pagan shrines; and to show their opposition to the king's desires, their hearts were moved, their just fury was aroused and they killed the one offering sacrifice right on the altar, as well as the king's messenger and they tore down the altar; then they fled that region and went into the desert to live lives of righteousness and religious freedom.
Our own day is not the time for religious zeal to cause us to kill people who offer sacrifices to pagan gods of this world, and to tear down their vile temples; rather it is time to demonstrate that we are related by adoption now (by our baptism) to the Prince of Peace himself, and that while called upon to transform the world, we can do so in a peaceable way, influenced by grace, and empowered and guided by the Holy Spirit himself. Thus we will show ourselves as true citizens of the one kingdom that counts: the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom which is to come in its fullness – any day at all!
If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts!
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