Homily: Parusia or the Second Coming of Jesus - Indian Catholic Matters (2024)

In the first reading taken from the prophet Ezekiel we find a beautiful passage that talks of how God will restore Israel to himself.Ezekiel was writing during the time of the fall of the Temple and the Babylonian exile.He was the priest of the Temple of Jerusalem and his writing reflects experiences in exile and upon return to Jerusalem.In this passage, he’s writing about God’s power and attributing all, good and bad, to the power of God.He denounces the sins of Israel which brought on the exile.He foretold greater misfortunes still for Judah, telling them the Jerusalem and the Temple would be destroyed by the Babylonians and people will be taken into exile.They had deserted Yahweh but their God who loves them so much will not desert them.He speaks of the better days to come when God would take back his people once more and dwell in their midst forever.

In his letter to the people of Corinth, Paul does not directly use imagery of Growth from nature.He is talking of followers of Christ becoming more and more and more like Christ as the days go by.He talks of becoming a New Creation.This idea of “new creation” is an old one in the tradition which formed Paul.That new creation represents all sorts of potential for change for the better in this case. In this passage Paul tells the Corinthians that his constant desire and motive in life is to please God.In this he wants them to imitate him. While on earth this is his aim and when he goes to God in heaven this will be his purpose and his delight.The Apostle reminds his readers that, at the end of this life on earth, God, who will replace our earthly tent or body with a heavenly or spiritual body, will also hold each person accountable for the life they have lived in the body.What is expected of us is to live our daily lives honestly and faithfully.

When Jesus spoke to the people about the Kingdom that he was going to establish he generally used stories or parables to illustrate the obvious facts and explain the truths contained in it. His reason was because the minds of the people were centered on the worldly kingdom they saw and glory and power it contained.Parables are specific literary forms, told for a particular religious or ethical purpose in order to provoke thought and challenge their hearers to decisive action. Every parable has two levels of meaning, the literal meaning and the tropical or figurative meaning to deduce the true and deeper lesson.The people waited for political messiah who would free them from the Roman rule and bring them freedom by providing for them their own empire. Jesus had to clear this wrong idea from their minds. In the meantime he described the Kingdom he was founding in a way that they would later understand.His stories and parables are taken from the everyday life of the Palestinian people and concern, farmers, fishermen, shepherds, and housewives.Today’s two parables are taken from the everyday agricultural experience.

When Mark put today’s two parables into writing, he had seen the death of two great apostles of Rome, Peter and Paul. The Parusia or the second coming of Jesus they were expecting had not come as yet. Nero blamed the Christians for the burning of Rome and the faith of the Christians was at a risk.The parables of Jesus given today provide an insight of the Kingdom of Jesus to the early church, as it gives to us today and explains its growth.Here in the Gospel, Jesus is giving an image of that kingship or power of God at work. He compares it to the situation of a farmer planting seed on his land. The parable of the seed on the surface tells us of nature’s mysteries of life and of growth.There is nothing as powerful as nature’s growth.Jesus says that night and day, while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed is sprouting and growing; how he does not know.” Jesus goes on to say: “Of its own accord the land produces first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.The seed that the farmer has sown on the ground sprouts, grows, forms leaves, and gets itself ready to produce, with no one understanding exactly how it happens.

The picture is clear: the building of the kingdom is God’s work.We see the growth of things in nature is often not perceptible. We can see them with periodic observance of the things that are planted or by returning at intervals.It is the same way with the Kingdom of God. It goes on growing whether we are working with it or not; whether we are aware of it or not. It will not be frustrated by any opposition or passivity on our part. We can see evidence of that in the way that the Christian faith has survived over the past 2,000 years. Some people, some governments and other powerful agencies have done their utmost to obliterate Christianity from the area under their control. The kingdom grows quietly without anyone being aware of it.It is the working of the Spirit that makes the growth possible.

Jesus gives another image of the Kingdom. Here he gives his equally brief, simple and homely parable of the mustard seed which he calls the smallest of all the seeds of the earth.It is in reality not the smallest but proverbially so in Palestine during the time of Jesus it was considered to be so.Here the image is not on the inevitability of growth but of how the Kingdom emerges from tiny beginnings. As in the first parable it contains several points. Here it is smallness against something very large. One begins with the observation that the tiny mustard seed grows into a very large shrub that has large branches, so big that it can provide shelter for birds under its shade. This is clearly a parable of encouragement. We need to remember that when these words were written the Church was still relatively small. Despite its insignificant beginnings Christ’s Kingdom has grown tremendously, and will continue to grow.It too reaches far out giving shelter to all races and nations of people.

That vision, given the adverse circ*mstances in which the Gospel was written, was an enormous vote of confidence in the Church and the future of the Kingdom. Truly, the Kingdom of God in today’s two parables is seen as the rule of God in the lives of people and the way in which God works among us. Today’s parable assures the readers of the Gospel that, like the mustard seed, they can grow. How surprised those early Christians would be to see the Church today. We can visualize how the mustard seed has grown in the world of today.

One of the proofs of the divine origin of the church of Jesus is its growth from its very humble beginnings.Being God, Christ could have come in different ways and preached the whole world without any hindrance and without any human help.He could have transformed the world through extra-ordinary miracles. He could have chosen brilliant persons and not simple ordinary fishermen, tax collectors, freedom fighters, to be his followers.Instead he chose to come into the world as a little baby, the son of a poor mother and a carpenter foster father. He was born in a stable, forced to hide into pagan Egypt to protect himself from an enemy, lived thirty years in an unknown village in poverty, and earned his daily bread by hard work. For the last three years of his life he went round Palestine teaching and healing, often weary, hungry and footsore, preaching the good news of redemption.

A stranger once asked a teacher, “What’s your profession?” The teacher replied, “Christian,” The stranger continued, “No, that’s not what I mean. What’s your job?” The teacher asserted, once again, “I’m a Christian!” Puzzled, the stranger clarified, “Perhaps I should ask, what you do for a living?” The teacher replied, “Well, I’ve a full-time job as a Christian. But, to support my sick husband and children, I teach in a school.” That teacher had certainly understood the meaning of discipleship summarized by: “Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will.”

A little story goes of a young boy who went, one summer, with his parents to Europe.The family visited many of the great and majestic cathedrals of the past.The child was indeed awe struck and amazed to see the wonderful and glorious structures and the massive stained glass portraits of various saints.On returning back from the tour, the catechism teacher asked the child, “So, I hope you had a lovely time, especially seeing so many spectacular churches and cathedrals. What did you like most in them?”The child answered,” I very much liked and was impressed by the immensity and awesomeness of our God, in whose honour and name, these churches are built!”With a glow in his eyes, the child added,” And I also realized… what is a saint”. Recalling the massive and beautiful stained glass windows, he said: “A saint is a person, through whom the light shines!” That was indeed an amazing observation…… a saint is a person, through whom the light shines!The person who allows the radiance of God’s love to flow through…The person who is pure and transparent to let the rays of God’s mercy to shine through…….Such a person is a Saint!.