Homily for Thursday, Week 6 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Thursday
Week 6 of Ordinary Time

Feb. 20, 2025
Mark 8: 27-33
Gen 9: 1-13
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

"Get behind me, Satan"
(James Tissot)

“Who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8: 29).

Jesus has been going about his public ministry for some time, teaching, healing, exorcising, multiplying bread, and arguing with scribes and Pharisees.  His disciples have been following him around Galilee, the Decapolis, and Lebanon.  Now he asks for their assessment of what they’ve seen and heard.

Peter has the right answer but not the right understanding.  If, as close to him as the 12 have been, they’re still clueless about his mission, then they’d better “not tell anyone about him” (8:30).  The crowds, not to mention his adversaries, will have even less understanding.

Jesus tries to explain what being the Messiah means:  rejection, suffering, death, and resurrection.  The 1st 3 of those experiences are the full human condition.  Jesus belongs to us.  The 4th experience is to become part of the human condition; we are to belong to God, or to be restored to God’s original plan, when humans were created in the divine image (Gen 9:6; 1:26-27).

Landscape with Noah's Thank Offering
(Joseph A. Koch)

The covenant that God established with Noah and his family (9:9), a covenant of preservation, has been superseded by a new covenant “for all ages to come” (9:12)—that those who follow Jesus Messiah thru suffering and death, putting aside human ways of thinking (Mark 8:33), shall be raised with him.