Every successful business or organization
begins with a mission statement.
Usually no longer than a paragraph, a
mission statement is a summary of the purpose and values of an institution. It
crystallizes and gives focus to the organization’s time and resources. Finally,
it gives people outside the group an idea of what they are all about.
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus proclaims
to us His mission statement. Reading from the prophet Isaiah, He declares to
those gathered in the synagogue - and to us sitting here today - what He is all
about. By reflecting on these words, we can gain deeper insight into the
mystery of who Jesus is and what He was sent to do.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the
poor.
He has sent me to proclaim
liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the
blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year
acceptable to the Lord.
First of all, Jesus is the One sent by the
Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. His proclamation in the synagogue
follows His baptism in the Jordan River when the Holy Spirit came down upon
Him. It is by the power of God that He acts. Jesus is no mere activist or
do-gooder trying to make the world a better place through convincing arguments
and charitable works. His power does not come from His ideas or His organizational
skills. Rather it comes from the Spirit of God at work in Him. Therefore He is
not just one prophet in a long line of prophets or just one reformer in a long
line of reformers. Instead He is THE
prophet. He is THE One sent to bring about the salvation that God had
promised.
Secondly, Jesus came not only to preach
God’s word but to show His mercy in concrete acts on behalf of the poorest of
the poor. The Spirit of God at work in the world through Jesus brings about
freedom, healing and forgiveness. We see this play out throughout the gospels.
Jesus releases many people from captivity by driving demons out of them. When
the woman was caught in adultery and about to be stoned by the Pharisees, He
won her freedom and refused to condemn her. Whenever He encountered the blind,
the deaf and lepers, He never failed to heal them when approached Him with
faith. He forgave the sins of the paralyzed man who was brought down to Him
through a roof and promised the thief who was crucified beside Him that He
would be with Him in Paradise.
Today’s gospel tells us all we need to
know about Jesus. He is the One who in the power of the Holy Spirit brings
freedom, healing and forgiveness.
If we hear Jesus’ mission statement in the
gospel, then we hear our own mission statement as His followers in today’s
second reading:
For in one Spirit we were all
baptized into one body....
You are Christ’s body, and
individually parts of it.
First of all, through baptism, we received
the Spirit of God. This is the same Spirit that empowered Jesus to bring freedom,
healing and forgiveness to the world. What sets us apart as believers is that
we do not try to accomplish good works through our own skills and effort.
Rather we do it in the power of the Spirit we received at our baptism. As was
the case with Jesus, it is God at work in us making us holy and enabling us to
do more good than we could ever do on our own. It is only by abandoning
ourselves daily to the Holy Spirit and being obedient to His promptings that we
can accomplish more than we could ever hope for or imagine.
Secondly, through baptism we become
members of Christ’s body. Now that Jesus has ascended to the right hand of the
Father, He accomplishes His work through us. He is the head and we are the
body. If Jesus is to bring freedom, healing and forgiveness to the world today,
it has to be through us. As Saint Teresa of Avila said so beautifully, “Christ
has no hands now but yours.” As is the case with our bodies, every member is
important and necessary. We cannot function well without our heart, or our
fingers of our kneecaps. So we as a Church cannot be fully who we are unless
everyone contributes. If there are people in today’s world who continue to
suffer and who are ignorant of Jesus and His saving power the only reason can
be that we have failed to help them in the power of God’s Holy Spirit. However,
if we give ourselves over to the work of the Spirit, if we step outside our
comfort zone to console someone who is hurting, to give a hand to someone who
has fallen down or to offer food to a homeless person, God’s power will be
released into this hurting world and it will be forever changed.
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