XXII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Hebrews 12:18-19,22-24
The Old and the New Testaments
The second reading, from the letter to the Hebrews, makes a comparison between the Old and the New Covenants. We cannot forget that the Christian Bible is made up of the Old and the New Testaments, and we do not put them on an equal footing. The New supersedes the Old, bringing fulfilment to it. According to Paul, “the law is become our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But now faith that is come, we are no longer under a tutor.” (Gal 3:24-25)
According to the letter to the Hebrews, in the Old Testament, people experienced the terrifying holiness of God, in such a way that everybody was afraid of coming close.
“You shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Be careful not to go up the mountain or to touch the edge of it. Any who touch the mountain shall be put to death.” (Ex 19:12)
Nobody could see the face of God and live (Ex 33:20). In the New Testament, people make the experience of God in a totally different way:
“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” (Heb 12:22-24)
In Jesus, God is God with us, and we come close to him, because he is ready to be touched by our sufferings, giving a listening heart to our cries. In Jesus Christ, we are accepted as children, and we can approach God with confidence, not being afraid of calling him father (Ro 8:15).
The Bible and the Quran
As we compare the Old and the New Testament and see the differences, we can as well compare the Holy Scriptures with the Quran. Hearing daily news about violence committed in the name of Islam, some wish to compare the violence in the Bible with the violence in the Quran, claiming that one is not different from the other, even though there are no Christians who have ever justified violence committed among themselves or against others with the teachings of Jesus.
Christians read the Scriptures as the word of God, and Muslims also consider the Quran as the word of God. However, for Christians, the Bible is not the word of God in the way the Quran is the word of God for the Muslims.
They consider Quran as the exact word of God dictated to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel. So the Quran is the eternal word of God transmitted exactly as it is written in heaven before the beginning of times. In the Quran, there are no human writers involved and no human being had the opportunity of using his personal skills in writting whatever is there. The Quran is just one book, an eternal book, which has not undergone any change - that is the Muslims’ belief, even though it can be historically proved that the book has undergone several changes.
The Bible is not one book; instead, it is made up of many books, written by different people at very different times and circumstances and in many different forms and styles. For us the Bible is the word of God in human words, with the writers of the books playing a major role in transmitting God’s message. We believe that reading the Bible, we can hear God addressing himself to us, wiling to have a personal relationship with us, and that does not imply that each and every word was pronounced by God. That’s why we study and examine the books of the Bible as we do to any other book.
In the Bible, we find a God who reveals himself through human history, in such a way that in the Bible we find the history of a nation with all the conflicts which a nation is involved in. The revelation of God in the Bible is a process, and a very long process. God was not afraid or ashamed of coming close to man and get involved in their history. God came down to the level of the people, in order to lift them to the dignity of his glory. We are not surprised to find the culture of the people of Israel and of the neighbouring nations in the Bible.
In the Bible, we find the history of salvation, in which God walks along the people of Israel, preparing the coming of the Messiah. It is Jesus Christ who comes to reveal the mystery of God’s love.
In the New Testament, we do not find violence, but the violence suffered by Jesus and by the first Christians. Jesus did not inflict violence, he suffered violence. And the same happened with the followers of Jesus Christ, who suffered persecution, and still do in many places. Jesus taught his disciples to love their enemies and to answer evil with good (Mt 5:44).
It was very different with Muhammad, the founder of Islam. In Mecca, he started in a humble way, achieving nothing. Then, after moving to Medina, he became the ruler of the city and imposed himself through the sword, creating an empire. In Islam, religion and state are the two sides of the same coin. Muhammad started a religion and an empire, spreading Islam with the sword in the hand. Christ died on the cross, forgiving those who crucified him.
Pride is like a sickness without cure
The Gospel tells us not to fight for the first places. The true follower of Jesus is not after power and glory, the passing glory of this world, but he walks on the path of humility, so that he may be at the service of others. paying attention to the poor, and using the riches he has to help those who cannot pay back.
The book of Ecclesiasticus tells us:
There is no cure for the proud man’s malady,
since an evil growth has taken root in him. (Ecc 3:28)
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