And the salvation God promises through Israel isn’t completed when they cross the Jordan. Moses can only peer into and not enter the Promised Land. Jesus’ command over the unclean spirits, his enmity with the forces that seek our oppression and ruin, is total.īut what about Moses? Remember Mount Nebo, where he is delivering his sermons in Deuteronomy. His Gospel is particularly interested in displaying how Jesus’ power extends into dispelling the works of Satan. He is on a mission to dismantle the system of evil we see around us.
Does Scripture’s explicit demonology make us uncomfortable? What’s really behind our variance to it or our attempts to “demythologize” it away? Do we lose a dimension of the Gospel doing so?Įpiphanytide is the Church’s means to “chew over” those moments in Jesus’s life and ministry where he particularly disclosed his identity as the Messiah, our Deliverer and Redeemer.The liberty Paul speaks of is the Church’s exodus from darkness and sin into the light of God’s redemption in Christ. What Paul seems to be implying is that even though the forces of the Enemy exist, they no longer have the power to afflict those for whom “there is one God, the Father… and one Lord, Jesus Christ.” Christians then should indulge the consciences of those who wish to divest themselves of the surrounding culture’s complicit stance with “the ruler of the power of the air.”Īs our Gospel reading will make clear, Christian experience has understood Jesus’ mission as the liberation of the human community from the kingdom of Satan and his fallen angels by the ushering in of the Reign of God. I do not want you to be partners with demons.” Doesn’t this seem to contradict what he says in our passage? Do the demons behind the idols exist or do they not? Paul’s thoughts on Hellenistic temple food practices (purchased meat was often taken from the animal sacrificed on pagan altars) and the delicate consciences of certain Corinthian Christians have to do with the disclosure of the Paschal Mystery? To be a bit perplexed, look further in the letter: “I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. Considering its liturgical use, does it tell us anything about praise? Christian worship?.Does this Psalm help to answer our previous question about Jesus’ status as God’s prophet?.The subtext of these passages is that there is an essential correspondence between what God has done in the history of Israel which is finally consummated in the Paschal Mystery of Christ. The patristic practice of putting the psalms “on the lips of Christ” only avails richer meditation. The resonances with the Exodus narrative are obvious and supplement what we’ve already considered about Moses in our reading from Deuteronomy. The psalmist praises and thanks the Lord chiefly for his saving actions in history for the Covenant People. We might see this psalm in some sense as “looking behind the veil” at the heart of the prophet who converses with God. What does this passage teach us about a theology of Scripture? Of Jesus’s identity as a “new” Moses?.But more importantly, recall the repeated references to Jesus going away to pray and converse with God “face to face” like Moses in the Tabernacle. Recall the Massacre of the Innocents, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Transfiguration on Tabor. This is intentional on the part of the Evangelists. Throughout the Gospels, we will find further parallels between the lives of Moses and Jesus. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”
John tells us, “No one has ever seen God. On Sinai, Moses had to be protected like every other mortal from seeing the Lord’s glory, or he would die. Moses’ identity instead stems from that the Lord would “speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.” But even this had its limits. This includes the Lord’s promise to raise up a prophet like Moses in our reading from Deuteronomy.īut what is it that makes Moses a prophet and Jesus the fulfillment of this prophecy? Moses’ privilege was not solely that he was the custodian of God’s power of deliverance from bondage in Egypt and in the delivering of the Law to the People. The Mysteries the Church explores on these Sundays following the feast (the visit of the Magi, Jesus’ Baptism, the Transfiguration, the Wedding at Cana, etc.) are concerned with Jesus showing just who he is and how he fulfills the promises God has made throughout salvation history. Epiphanytide is a meditation on God’s announcing and disclosing of himself in the varying activities of Jesus’ life.
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