Daily Reflection Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Chapter 12 of Matthew began with the Pharisees condemning Jesus and his disciples for plucking grain on the Sabbath. Jesus’ response to them includes telling them that, “There is something greater than the temple here.” Jesus says this only in Matthew. In today’s passage from later in Matthew 12, Jesus completes this statement with two others like it, “Something greater than Jonah is here” and “Something greater than Solomon.” Also included in these sayings is Jesus saying at the beginning of Matthew 12 that “The Son of Man is Lord even of the sabbath.”

The Synoptic gospel accounts are less strident than John in their proclamation that Jesus was divine as well as human. You have to look a bit more closely for these moments of “higher Christology” in the Synoptics. Today’s passage along with the earlier passage from Mt 12:6-8, are examples of this. Jesus tells the Pharisees that he is greater than the temple, greater than Jonah and greater than Solomon. He does not shrink from stating this to them plainly. He states it as merely true. It culminates in his telling them that he is Lord of the sabbath as well. All of these can be seen as a direct claim on Jesus’ part to divinity.

Our faith in the divinity of Christ is the central truth of Christianity that makes all the difference for us. It is all true that Jesus is our brother, that he was a wise man and a holy man, even that he healed many and worked many great signs. Those can all be seen as who he was as fully human. But it is our firmest faith to see him as also fully divine. It is that divinity, “The Word made flesh,” as John puts it, that makes Jesus far more than just another wise man. Far more than just another holy man or worker of miracles. Far more than another great man, than any great human being. It is Jesus as the God-Man, as some theologians have termed it, that ought to help us hear the Father say to us, “This is my beloved son. Listen to him.”

It is because God has chosen from the beginning to enter fully into God’s creation to make it one with the creator, that we put all our faith and all our trust in Jesus. Jesus the Good Shepherd who leads us beside the still waters is always as near to us as God is near to us. Jesus, who has experienced everything as we experience it but never sinned, takes us home. Nothing is impossible for him. Let us pray for the faith that believes in him.