Homily for Tuesday
Week 1 of Ordinary Time
Jan. 14, 2025
Heb 2: 5-12
Christian Brothers, St.
Joseph Residence, N.R.
Salvador Mundi (Domenico Fetti)
“We see Jesus ‘crowned with glory and honor’
because he suffered death” (Heb 2: 9).
The author of the Letter to the Hebrews quotes
from Ps 8, which was our responsorial psalm, about the dignity of human beings,
“a little lower than the angels,” the crown of material creation (2:7). People are meant to rule “all things,” but it
hasn’t worked out that way (2:8).
Therefore God sent Jesus into creation, to become
“lower than the angels” in his humanity—“lower” in that his material dignity is
lesser than their spiritual dignity, “lower” in that earth is below heaven. In his lesser, material dignity he was to
“taste death” (2:9) like all human beings, all living things.
It’s God’s plan thru Jesus to lead men and women,
God’s “many children,” thru their suffering, beyond their suffering, into
glory. Because Jesus submitted to the
human condition, God has glorified him and made him “the leader” or, literally,
“the pioneer” in human salvation (2:10).
One commentator writes, “In reality, what produced the glorification of
Jesus is not his death itself but the way he faced his death. He made it the occasion of a perfect offering
of filial obedience to God and fraternal solidarity with” humanity.[1]
Jesus
is “perfected thru suffering,” i.e., made complete. He couldn’t be a complete man, couldn’t fully
identify with the human race and become our leader, unless he suffered like us,
even unto death (2:10). “Those who are
being consecrated,” viz., those who follow Jesus as their leader, have the same
origin, a common humanity, as Jesus our consecrator.
Not
everything is yet “under his feet,” “subject to him” (2:8). The Devil still claims lordship over material
creation. But Jesus is already working
his defeat, as evidenced in the exorcism he orders in the synagog at Capernaum
in today’s gospel (Mark 1:21-28). All
things will come under his feet because he’s gone thru death, defeated death,
and attained the glory of God “by the grace of God” (2:9) for all his brothers
and sisters, God’s “many children” (2:10).
[1]
Albert Vanhoye, SJ, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary, trans.
Leo Arnold, SJ (NY: Paulist, 2015), p. 74.
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