Retreat for Renewal – 1 January 2023
Controversial activist and civil rights leader Malcolm Boyd wrote a book years ago, Are You Running With Me, Jesus? It was a book filled with honest and heartfelt prayers that I suspect all of us would pray if we were honest with God. If perhaps we give God the chance to speak and we listen, we might get a bit closer to running on kairos [qualitative time] instead of chronos [quantitative time].
Even when Israel was unfaithful, God kept his covenant with Israel. They were called, protected, exalted, delivered and safely led. Jesus was also safely led back to Nazareth, and as the Hebrews text reminds us, Jesus, just like the God of Abraham, keeps his covenant. Our many tests and temptations may move us toward retreat. But because Christ was tested, he is a help to us who are tested.
Do we need to charge ahead, or do we need to retreat? Only prayer can answer that for us. Let us be honest as we pray, and not retreat in cowardice, but rather in renewal. After some retreat time, we might be ready to run. The work of Christmas has begun. –– Sky McCracken
Matthew 2:13–23
Matthew, more than any other Gospel, draws close parallels between the life of Jesus and the promises of the Hebrew scriptures. Here we see parallels both to the life of Moses (the massacre of the innocents, the saving of this one child) and to the life of Israel as a whole (in Hosea 11:1 Israel, God's Son, is “called out of Egypt” at the time of the Exodus).
Jesus's birth and ministry signals a new exodus with Jesus, the true Son, at the head. As a side note, there is no passage in the Hebrew Scriptures about Jesus being called a Nazorean. Scholars speculate whether this might be a play on similar sounding words like naser (“bud” from Isaiah 11:1—from the stump of Jesse) or nazir (consecrated to God, like Samson in Judges 13:5–7). –– Mary Katharine Deeley
Hebrews 2:10–18
Chapter 2 of Hebrews deals with Jesus' human nature (v 7). The crux of the latter half of the chapter can be found in verses 16–17: he chose to help the descendants of Abraham and to do so he had to become like them in every way. The author also introduces the theme of Jesus as High Priest who expiates the sins of the people before God. According to Hebrews, this was possible because Jesus was made human. –– Mary Katharine Deeley
Isaiah 63:7–9
The message of salvation is continued in the poetry of Isaiah. Reminiscent of the Psalms in its structure, this passage recalls what God has done for the people (see Pss 107 or 118, for example). Isaiah's emphasis on God's personal intervention (v 9) is key to Christian understanding of Jesus. Note, too, that it is out of love and compassion that God redeems, a theology very close to John's Gospel (John 3:16, “God so loved the world…”) –– Mary Katharine Deeley
Mary Katharine Deeley is the director of Christ the Teacher Institute of the Sheil Catholic Center, the Roman Catholic campus ministry at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. She is the author of many books, a frequent speaker on diverse topics, and a pastoral advisor.
Sky McCracken is a United Methodist Church pastor and District Superintendent in Paducah, Kentucky. His blog is at revdsky.blogspot.com.
Homily Service 41, no. 1 (2007): 67–77.