A Candle Cannot Light Itself – Homily for the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today’s readings come straight at us.

Isaiah might just as well have said:

“You are my servant, people of St. Peter Parish, through whom I show my glory….I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

Paul speaks to the Corinthians, but also to us:

“Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the church of God that is at St. Peter’s, to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy…”

John the Baptist tells us to “Behold the Lamb of God.”

We will be made a light to the nations. We are called to be holy. We are to behold the Lamb of God.

John the Baptist is the embodiment of those three ideals. He has already been made a light to the nations by his voice crying in the wilderness. He has answered the call to be holy by encouraging people to make straight the way of the Lord. He has seen the Lamb of God.

And yet it wasn’t always that way.

Twice he says “I did not know him,”—him who, for two different reasons, we we would have expected to know the Messiah.

First, we would have expected John to know the Messiah because of his familiarity with the scriptures.

He knows the prophecies. He’s the son of Zechariah the priest. He has read and meditated on the coming of the Messiah; he has spent time studying the prophets.

And yet he does not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

He needs the voice of God to point out to him who the Messiah will be. He needs to hear that voice say, “On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one…”

We could ask ourselves, “What then was the point of all those years of praying and studying? Were they in vain?” No, those years of studying and praying were vital! It was only because of those years that John was able to hear that voice, to trust that voice when it spoke to him.

We learn from John the Baptist that knowing Jesus takes time and effort, that when we do our part, God always does His part. God patiently waits for us, ready to make us into a light to the nations.

When we read the gospel, when we study the scriptures, we become like candles, but candles cannot light themselves. We read and we pray, but we cannot see until the Holy Spirit comes and sets us afire. But the candles need to be made!

John the Baptist reminds us that the ordinary way Jesus is revealed to us is little by little, at the end of a slow, and even difficult journey, under the light of the Holy Spirit.

Getting to know Jesus is the result of reading and rereading the gospels every day. Each year the Church reads a different gospel—Matthew, Mark, or Luke—on the Sundays of the year in a three-year cycle. Next week we begin a year of reading the Gospel of Matthew. Why not read the Gospel of Matthew with the Church during the week leading up to each Sunday?

This can be done alone in our “inner room” each morning, reading the gospel for the coming weekend slowly, verse by verse, each day prayerfully savoring the words. It can be done with our family at the dinner table or before bed time, with a different family member reading each night, talking about what it might mean. Slowly, slowly, the candle of our life begins to take shape, rising taller and taller as we immerse ourselves in the Good News. But no matter how high we build the candle, we cannot light it ourselves. We wait patiently for the Holy Spirit to make us a light.

Maybe we’re tired of waiting.

Maybe we’ve come to the point where we think we’ve heard all these stories before, that we already know the gospels. After all, they get repeated every three years.

John the Baptist helps us here, too.

Remember, twice he said, “I did not know him.” First, he did not recognize the Messiah even though he knew the scriptures. And second, he did not recognize the Messiah even though they were family.

He didn’t know Jesus as the Messiah though he had known him for years. They were cousins; they were born only six months apart; they may have even grown up together.

We can live so close to someone and yet still not know them.

We can be intimately familiar with the gospel stories and yet still not know Jesus. Just as John needed the voice of God to help him recognize his cousin as the Lamb of God, we, too, need the voice of God in our lives to recognize Jesus.

We get to know Jesus through reading the gospels, but our reading of the gospels only makes sense if we also lead a sacramental life in a community of faith. The voice of God that spoke to John still speaks to us today in the lives of the people around us—our families, our friends, the poor and the forgotten—and especially when we gather to celebrate the sacraments.

Our relationship with Jesus begins in the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, where we are first made part of Jesus’ body. We come to know Jesus the healer in the sacrament of Reconciliation, where the mercy of Jesus is showered upon us. We discover Jesus the beloved in the sacrament of Marriage, where the love of Christ unites us. And most of all, in our gathering at this table, week after week, year after year, we behold Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, and we receive His Body and Blood.

It is in the lived experience of the Church that the gospels make sense and where we truly begin to know Jesus. Jesus comes alive in the hearts of all those who immerse themselves in the Good News in a faith community that gathers for the sacraments and cares for the poor.

This is who we, the people of St. Peter Parish, are to become.

This is what St. Paul means by saying we are “called to be holy.”

This is what John the Baptist means by telling us to “Behold the Lamb of God.”

And what is our response is to be? We have already spoken it today:

“Here am I Lord, I come to do your will.”

In other words, “We are your candles, Lord; set us afire, make of us a light to the nations.”

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