29th Sunday B

Jeff Bagnall • 11 October 2024

The middle section of the long Old Testament book of Isaiah is particularly about the peoples’ sorry state in exile in Babylon and the encouragement forf them that all will be well eventually. The section begins at chapter 40 with comforting words and ends in Chapter 55 with a confidence for the future. And the section contains four songs about the servant of the Lord. In the first song (Isaiah 42:1-9) the servant will gently bring peace to the people and to all nations in line with God’s intentions. The second is at the beginning of chapter 49, about the nation of Israel itself as in some way the servant accomplishing God’s will. The third song in chapter 50 speaks of the servant as an individual prophet announcing the good news of God in the face of all difficulties. And our reading today is just a small part of the final song ( Isaiah 53:10-11 ); it speaks of the servant as a righteous person overcoming all sinfulness so all might be righteous. Christians apply many of the descriptions of the servant in these songs to Christ Himself, for He, through much suffering, maintains His righteousness and enables it freely for all to attain; we see Jesus as the ultimate case of unselfishness and suffering that benefits others.

In the letter to the Hebrews the author interprets the history of the chosen people with all its ups and downs, and constantly points out the message it has for the Christians he addresses. The second reading is the next three verses after last week’s reading ( Hebrews 4:14-16 ). It develops this Christian interpretation of the suffering servant, but sees Jesus as the genuine priest, unlike all the others with their own sins, for He has not just symbolically entered the inner sanctum of the Temple, but has actually entered heaven itself. Being one of us, Jesus has won the possibility of ultimate success for everyone – the culmination of God’s creative act of unselfishness and risk-taking.

Mark wrote the good news of Jesus Christ for the early followers of the Way of Jesus. The purpose of this gospel is to give the people some understanding of the transformation potential that Jesus should have on the readers’ lives. Mark does this through the format of a report of the public life and death of Jesus, his sayings and his deeds and the reaction of those around him, especially the disciples; it expresses his understanding of the significance of it all for life in his time (and in ours today). The third reading ( Mark 10:32-45 ) we have for today is one of undoubted reliability, for no gospel writer would have portrayed the disciples in such a bad light had it not been past down to them from the disciples themselves, who admitted their unworthiness. The story is made public here so as to remind us Christians even to this day, that we can easily get the message of the Kingdom of God quite wrong because of our self-confidence and selfishness. The disciples thought the kingdom was to do with earthly power politics and selfish promotion. They just had not understood the main message Jesus was trying to put across to them; until He had actually died and it began to dawn on them what it was all about then they began to see things differently..

see Jeffs Jottings – here

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

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2026 - Year A

14 January 2026

The first reading comes from a section of Isaiah which nowadays we associate with Christmas. In Advent (the 4th Sunday of Advent, cycle A) we heard a prophecy of the birth of a young lady’s first child to be called Immanuel (‘God with us’). There are two other children in this section of the book; they have equally meaningful names: Maher Shalal Hash Baz (‘disaster will come upon many’) and She’ar Yashub (‘rescue for some’). All this precedes the section we read today; and after our reading comes the source of the well-known Christmas carol, “Unto us a son is born” (Isaiah 9:6). Our reading refers to Zebulun and Naphtali, which were tribal areas in the break-away northern kingdom. It is in these areas, we read, there have been difficulties but also glorious times (perhaps in the future). Because of the editing of the book of Isaiah over many centuries, it is uncertain what the historical reference is; it could be about 733 BC when the Assyrians invaded that land, but would eventually loose power, or it could be about the 6th century BC exile in Babylon and the eventual return. But for us today, it is clearly linked with the words of the gospel: there may have been darkness but now the light begins to shine!

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2026 - Year A

by Jeff Bagnall • 8 January 2026

The Lord speaks to one of His spokesmen (such is a prophet), with a quite progressive message for the chosen people (for us); it announces that though they are chosen yet His purpose is to extend salvation to all peoples everywhere. This first reading is the second prophecy/poem about the Servant of the Lord, found in the part of the book of Isaiah put together during the Exile in Babylon. We have just a few of its verses read to us, but selected to make a very significant point: that the chosen servant is to be a light of the nations, so that salvation may reach to everyone – to the ends of the earth. We see this insight that struggled to develop throughout the history of the Jews before Christ, and still had difficulty being grasped in the early church – and perhaps in our church today. The universal love of God is now generally recognised in the teaching of various Christian denominations; but the practice of this love and of its implications is still a difficulty both for some sections of the church and for us individually. Imagine the situation of the Jews in Exile, hit by this message that God actually loves those enemies of theirs, and that they, being a light to the Gentiles, should show this love to them.