Tuesday in the First Week of Advent, December 1, 2020

Luke 10:21-24

Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”  Turning to the disciples in private he said, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.”

We do not often see Jesus rejoicing in the Gospels.  The context here is the return of the seventy-two disciples from their preaching repentance and the approach of the kingdom of heaven: “And the seventy-two returned with joy, saying: Lord, the devils also are subject to us in your name” (Luke 10, 17).  The Lord, then, rejoices in the spread of the word of God by these men.  Their success glorifies God especially because they are not trained speakers, learned rabbis, or clever people: they are ordinary folks — fishermen, tax collectors, carpenters, shop keepers, laborers.  God shows forth his glory best not through the most radiant material, but through the ordinary material at hand.  If we see an angel performing some great work, we will be tempted to think it is done through the angel’s own power because we are so amazed at the angel’s appearance: Of course, we think, he has such great power.  Look at him!  But when an ordinary human in ordinary clothes, dusty from long walking, speaks with conviction about God and performs miracles and refuses rewards, then it is clear that God is acting through him.  Thus, we ordinary mortals may be true vessels of the Lord’s power.

The Lord Jesus exults to his Father that, “You have hidden these things from the wise and the learned and you have revealed them to the childlike.”  That is, the “wise and the learned” have not sought to know the kingdom of God, but the “child-like” have.  These words are aimed at the Pharisees and the high priests who insist on a Messiah whom they will control and a kingdom of Israel that they will rule.  They scorn holiness for the right to govern and for wealth.  By contrast with these, the Lord’s disciples are “child-like”.  They seek the kingdom which the Lord promises and preaches.  They are devoted not to worldly ambitions, but to him. 

“Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.”  This is an essential statement, but one easily overlooked.  The fact is that the “child-like” disciples preaching the word of God is decreed by Divine Providence.  It was foreseen from all eternity.  The preaching by ordinary folks and not by the learned and the clever is God’s will, his choice.  These are the means by which he makes himself known to the world.  Not by the slick Simon Magus of the Acts of the Apostles, but by the footsore, shipwrecked Paul, who himself admits that he is no skilled speaker.   This is as if the Lord were telling us: Anyone with faith can do this.

“All things have been handed over to me by my Father, etc.”  This verse sounds very much as though it were lifted from the Gospel of St. John.  We might wonder what these words are doing here since they sound and look so out of place.  The reading opened with the Lord praying.  Now, abruptly, he is teaching.  He is explaining to the disciples what they have done: they have participated in the very mystery of God.  They have shared what the Lord Jesus gave them, which he had from the Father.  They did not speak on their own, but God spoke in them.  Likewise, they did not perform healings and exorcisms on their own, but from the power they received from Jesus, which he had from the Father.  That the Father would choose them for this is more staggering than any works they performed.  Each of the disciples could reflect, “Almighty God, knowing who I am and all my weaknesses, sent me anyway.  What does he see in me?”

“Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.”  The Lord reinforces his teaching on what they have done with these words.  He assures them that the great ones of history and of prophecy longed to see his day — the coming of the Lord — but did not live to see it.  And yet, the disciples were looking at him, the Desire of the Nations.  Did that make them greater than the kings and prophets?  Again, it is a matter of God’s will.  God chose them.

It is necessary for the believer to wonder at his own being chosen by God, as well as at his own response to God’s choice of him.  And then, out of wonder, to work for the salvation of all.