We are with Jesus on the way to Jerusalem. And what happens is there in the area of the Transjordan, which would be the lower end of the Galilee region, an area that was under the control of Herod? And so the Pharisees come and again, they’re looking for an excuse, some reason, to have Jesus condemn. And because they want him out of the way.
And so what they do is they pose this question to him to test him. And they do it very deliberately because they know that they’re in the area of hatred. And because of that, they know that Herod is the one who had John the Baptist killed, because John kept telling him that it was wrong for him to be married to Herodias, the wife of his brother.
And so they’re hoping that Jesus will, in a sense, mirror the words of John the Baptist, and as such they will have then reason to denounce him to Herod, who they hope will then carry out the same sentence on Jesus that he carried out on John the Baptist. But Jesus doesn’t fall into that trap. What he does is he reminds them of what Moses said, okay, but he uses a phrase there.
He said, Moses said this because of the hardness of your hearts, and that’s a key, the hardness of your hearts. And then he goes on to quote from the Book of Genesis, from this story of creation, the first of the stories, because there are two stories of creation, one such as we hear Jesus quoting, which has God take the rib from the man and make the woman, because God recognizes that the man needs a companion, someone with whom he can share the gift of his life.
In the other story of Genesis, God creates them equally out of the dirt, and he breathes into them the gift of life. Jesus uses that by way of saying, when you look at creation from the inception of creation, God designed in order, and that order was meant for the goodness of the human persons, that they would learn, in a sense, to mirror God’s life in themselves, because they were created in the image and likeness of God.
They were created as sharers in God’s life. But Jesus uses that phrase because of the hardness of your hearts to basically say, creation has gotten distorted and it’s gotten distorted because of sin. And so he’s saying, so that’s why Moses, recognizing your human condition, gave this exception an exception that was readily used by the people back in that day.
Jesus then goes on to talk about the children, and we see that the disciples are trying to shun the children away from him. But Jesus calls the children to himself, and he uses that phrase that says they are the ones who will most likely end up in the kingdom of God. The attitude of the child and that sense of innocence and that sense of trust that allows the child to follow the will of God.
It is a very, I would say, challenging, a very challenging piece of Scripture for our world today. But it is also a challenge in Scripture because it calls us to refocus ourselves and refocusing ourselves really on the condition in which we live. His Holiness, Pope Francis has asked that tomorrow, the anniversary of the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas, Hamas and Israel.
Tomorrow is the first anniversary. And so he’s asked that it be a day of prayer and fasting, because the war has grown out of control. And as a result of that, there is a great risk to the world at large because of what is going on in the Middle East and also the recognition that the victims of the war are primarily the children.
You’ve seen the pictures, the reports of the children in Gaza, the children in Lebanon, but you’ve also seen the reports of what happened October 7th when Hamas invaded the area adjacent to Gaza, namely, the kibbutz is and the music festival that was going on, the horrors of that, along with the horrors of the war and the war, has great potential to throw the world into an even greater disaster.
Because it’s not just between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran, but it’s also with those connected to them. The United States is very present in this situation. Russia and China are very present in this situation. The U.S. is present because of, again, its support for Israel. Russia and China because of their support for Iran and the great danger is that someone will misstep in the process.
And literally the world will be in World War three, which is an uncontrollable event if it should take place. And so His Holiness has asked us to spend tomorrow in prayer and fasting. So that the church as a community can basically seek from God that which is necessary in order to come to some peaceful resolution, some cease fire, some stopping of the use of weapons.
It is one of the great sadnesses of modern life that we continually go to war. I was born in 1945, just at the end of World War two, and if you look and follow the line from there, there hasn’t been a day of peace. And then if you think and calculate the amount of resources, both people and material that have been wasted, that have been wasted, trillions of dollars, probably some world beyond trillions, when you think of it, and then you think of what could have been done with all of those dollars, what could have been done with all of those lives?
How much healing could have taken place? How much educational opportunities, how much medical resources, how much housing, how much elimination of poverty? What a different world it would be today if we honored God’s creation, if we honored the good order and the wholesomeness that God designed into creation. And so we’re at a critical point. And that’s why His Holiness, who often doesn’t engage in this type of a call, is called upon us to tomorrow be a prayer.
People of prayer and fasting, seeking from God the wisdom to flow upon all of those who are engaged in this unceasing battle, to recognize the worth and the value of each other’s life, and to put aside the weapons and come to the table, that they might begin to recognize the reality. The reality is. That the Israelis and the Palestinians must live in peace in this one part of the world, because it belongs to both of them.
It belongs to both of them. And the stupidity of thinking that one can overcome the other and seize all of this is the illusion, the illusion that causes people to turn to the wrong means to turn to violence as a way of resolving. But the other sad part is the children. The children who are being maligned in the sense of injured, losing family, losing parents, losing a place to live.
Hobbling for food. All of that which we see. And you say, why in this day and age, why are we scoring these children and setting up the continuation of the nonsense, the nonsense of waste that comes from trying to use violence to resolve our difficulties? I invite you to spend some time tomorrow in prayer, wherever it may be, wherever it may be, it might be here.
You might be working. You might be someplace else. Spend some time in prayer and do engage in fasting that hopefully our intercession will be fruitful and they will put aside these weapons before we go to a much greater conflagration.