Friday, May 28, 2021

Jesus, the Word and Wisdom

WORD 2day: Saturday, 8th week in Ordinary time

May 29, 2021: Sirach 51:12-20; Mark 11: 27-33

The Second person of the Trinity is the Word; the Wisdom which is personified as God's guiding presence for the people of the Old Testament. The readings taken together give us a twin perspective of Jesus and Jesus' relation to the figure of Wisdom! 

1. Jesus has Wisdom: the Gospel presents to us the way Jesus tackled the trap that was laid for him by the shrewd pharisees and scribes. Jesus proves that he had the Wisdom, a great gift from the Lord. Wisdom is fundamentally knowing what to say and what not to say at a particular point of time and saying what is to be said in the best way possible with the choice of the right verbal or non verbal language! Now that was Jesus' forte. Be it in the event we come across in the Gospel today, or the incident of the woman caught in adultery, or the case of the Samaritan Woman, or the discussion with the disciples asking for power and position... everywhere, we see that Jesus knew the right thing to be said at the right time. Above all, even when Jesus had to point out some one's fault or be critical about someone, he chose the right sense of doing it. He had wisdom in its fullness, even as a human person in daily experience.

2. Jesus as Wisdom: the way the first reading presents Wisdom, we come to clearly understand what the Old Testament speaks of as Wisdom is not merely a quality or a faculty, but a person, a personal presence of the Almighty! When Jesus lived and moved around, people readily and without much difficulty saw the Wisdom that he was. Jesus was, and is, the Wisdom that fills us with light and shows us the way. 

If only we accept the Wisdom of Christ in contrast to the folly of truth claims of the world, we would find that joy that is complete, that joy that Christ alone can give.

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