Tuesday babbling along
Our gospel for next Sunday, when we will not have Sunday School due to the bishop's visiting agenda for that very hour.
Luke 13:31-35 (NRSV)
31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” 32 He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. 33 Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’
34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35 See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
++++++++++
This is our gospel reading for Lent 2, Year C, March 17, 2019. As the bishop will be making his visit to our parish, and taking our usual Sunday School hour for brunch and customary meetings, we will not have SS, so I’ll not prepare as if we were, but just comment briefly.
Luke is writing his story for Theophilus maybe what? sixty years after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, based on what Luke has read and heard, with benefit of hindsight and with his own agenda which identifies Jesus as a Jerusalemite prophet (as here Luke quotes Jesus identifying himself) and which Luke, more than the other evangelists, ties Jesus closely to Jerusalem and the (now by Luke’s time destroyed) Temple. Luke reports Jesus alluding to his work as healer, then dying, and the three day theme that the church calls the Easter Triduum; a Sunday reading suitable for Lent’s leading up to.
Verses 34-35 (also found in Matthew 23, which therefore some scholars mark as from hypothetical Sayings Gospel Q) also signify Jesus’ destined journey to Jerusalem and death.
Verse 35, Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, which Jesus quotes the Jewish liturgical formula from Psalm 118:26 בָּרוּךְ הַבָּא בְּשֵׁם יְהוָה “baruch haba beshem Adonai” greeting one who comes in the name of Adonai - - “blessed” from baruch, blessed, blest, greeted, saluted, in the Septuagint rendered εὐλογημένος, spoken well of, as the gospel writers mean Jesus to be converting the formula from greeting one who comes to worship in the name of Adonai (or greeting the bridegroom arriving at the wedding) to being about himself (all of which can be rationalized to fit); and now meaning in this gospel setting to prefigure the Palm Sunday greeting as Jesus enters Jerusalem - - blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest - - is in eucharistic prayers right after the Sanctus, as the Benedictus qui venit.
Why do some cross themselves at the Benedictus qui venit? It is said that in the old days of the Latin mass with the congregation not understanding Latin, hearing the word Benedictus and thinking they were getting a priestly blessing they would make the sign of the cross. The practice goes on, apparently not among RC, but among many Episcopalians who still make the sign of the cross because it has sprung up as custom but may etiologically take it to mean, in liturgical theology, that, as with his arrival in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, Jesus is now coming, or has come, or is about to come present, both generally into the gathering and specifically into the bread and wine, and so make the sign of the cross at his coming.
Again, Luke’s NT Greek word for blessed is not makarios, meaning, as in the Beatitudes, happy, blest, content, satisfied, and not hagios, which would mean holy; but εὐλογημένος meaning praised, spoken well of, whence comes our word eulogy, good words spoken at funerals (I've already done several myself this year). In all, I’m not certain that sanctifying oneself when the Latin rendering Benedictus as Blessed is called for; but in our church it has become custom yea unto tradition.
Now I need a picture, or a martini. I'll take the martini.
T+