12th Sunday B

Jeff Bagnall • 14 June 2024

The book of Job looks like a tale about a happy family man whose goodness is tested by God to see if it survives ill-fortune. Even in translation it is quite poetic and has contributed various phrases to our language and themes to our literature. Nearly all of the 42 chapters of the book are long poetic speeches, mostly by his friends telling him to repent because he must have done wrong to be so treated by God; they were the first “Job’s comforters.” But Job keeps interrupting these speeches proclaiming his innocence and wanting an explanation from God Himself. In our reading ( Job 38:1,8-11 ) God begins to speak, accompanied by a whirlwind; but it’s not quite what Job is looking for; God reminds Job that He is the one who is creating this wonderful world; with remarkable imagery God likens His act of creating to that of a mother giving birth, yet we know that this creating can be a struggle over a period of time. So is the message for us that like an infant we should just take what comes and love our Mother, creator?

Whereas in Job creation is an ongoing and developing, sometime awkward process, in our second reading ( 2 Cor 5:14-17 ) Paul expresses the Christian understanding that since Christ we experience a new dimension to creation; through His life and death in our ordinary world, there is a transformation – the impact of His resurrection manifesting the availability of a new way of living for all. We don’t know quite what he meant by “for all” because generally at that time and perhaps ever since then, Christians have assumed this graced and elevated life was just for believers, not for anybody. There are different translations into English which indicate the difficulty this idea is for some Christians: the International Standard Version has [ with my emphasis ] “Therefore, if anyone is in the Messiah, he is a new creation. Old things have disappeared, and—look!—all things have become new!” The King James Bible has “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” The New International version has” Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” Some versions seem to limit the new creation to Christians, others to the whole of creation. At least Paul is saying that we who are followers of Christ should be living in a new way; and this is a message for us.

Though God is the powerful creator and there is a higher dimension to the life in the world, yet there are always going to be difficulties and always a way through them though not necessarily out of them.

So now after his collection of parables, Mark begins a new section with miracles, of which we read the first in Mark 4:35-41 this day. It is the account of a mighty storm at sea as the darkness sets in; it is bad enough to really scare the disciples in their boat, despite the fact that many of them are fishermen and should be used to this weather. The crossing has been suggested by Jesus and it is from Jewish territory to Gentile territory; this reflects one of the stormy arguments in the early church about admitting Gentiles to join the followers of Jesus; it is really unimaginable for some people, but Jesus if called upon can calm the storm. This is another instance of the process that goes on in our world where problems and difficulties arise, but God is ultimately in control of everything. The reading is a lesson for us Christians today, not just for the first recipients of the gospels, for we experience this very process of storms and calming in our lives, in the church and in the world as we know it.

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Jeff Bagnall was a lecturer for many years at Craiglockhart College teaching RE to many future Catholic Primary teachers.

4th Sunday of Easter 2026 - Year A

by Jeff Bagnall • 21 April 2026

The first reading repeats the introduction from last week so as to make sense, for there follows a continuation of the previous words spoken to the crowd by Peter. The people have been moved by the accusation of putting Jesus to death, and they want to know what they can do. Peter calls upon them to be baptised. As John the Baptist seems to have preached to his listeners, Peter begins with the need for repentance and the need for baptism. You could feel sorry for the past but this repentance means ‘change your attitude to life.’ Baptism is a washing symbolic of starting with a clean sheet; here it is for starting a new life caught up in the life of the risen Christ. In his life our past is transformed; those baptised will have the forgiveness of past sins. The words translated ‘forgiveness of’ could equally well be translated as ‘release from,’ meaning a freedom from the debilitating affects of past sins. Those baptised will share in the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit of God. God wants people of all kinds to come into this communion with Him.

3rd Sunday of Easter - 2026 - Year A

15 April 2026

In Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, today’s first reading is the first sermon from Peter after the resurrection. The literary style is not that of a Galilean Jew, but the content is believable as a very early expression of the initial preaching about Jesus. In this first century account of the beginnings of Christianity, Peter is a key figure in the growth of the early church, together with Paul, the missionary to the Gentiles. It is significant that it is a Jewish audience in Jerusalem that Peter is addressing. Jesus is referred to as the Nazarean and there is uncertainty whether this means a man from Nazareth or one specially dedicated to God, as for example, Samson in the Old Testament, called a Nazirite. The understanding of Christian beliefs develops over time, so Peter speaks about God working through Jesus where we might be clear that Jesus is Himself God; but he does see Jesus as the fulfilment of the hopes of the Old Testament and quotes Psalm 16 verses 8 to 11, which was a song originally about someone faithful to the Lord, maybe king David, being looked after by Him; (it is used for the responsorial psalm this day). In the sermon Peter accuses the Jews of engineering the death of Jesus in an anti-Semitic way; this attitude was decried by the Church most noticeably in the 20th century in the Second Vatican Council initiated by Pope Saint John XXIII, with the words: “Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any person, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel’s spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.” (The Church and non-Christian religions, Nostra Aetate, Oct. 1962). But for us the positive message from Peter’s sermon is that the Spirit of God is now poured out into creation because of the resurrection of Jesus destroying the deadliness of death and the power of evil in our lives. The second reading is part of an address to early Christians, probably Gentile converts. It is about what it means to be a Christian, noting that it is brought about by Christ – the writer uses the word ‘ransomed’, but no words can really capture the mystery of it. The mystery is that the final age has been initiated thanks to the work of God in Christ, through His life and death. The imagery of the sacrificial lamb which is used is derived from the bloody sacrifices of the Jewish Temple which at the time of this letter had been destroyed. And those addressed are living like people in exile and are urged to conduct themselves reverently in this situation; this reflects how the Jews were when they were in exile in Babylon, they had to work at it to keep themselves true to their calling. So, though we are elevated in our being through the work of God in Christ, we are for the time being in this world and must live here in a way becoming of our status.