Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about firstly, from the book of the prophet Isaiah, on the prophecy of the suffering Servant, the Messiah who would suffer for our sins, and who would be given the burden of all of mankind’s faults, and He would be crushed with the grief and the punishment due for our faults, mistakes and sinfulness.

And in the Psalm, we heard about the Lord our God, who is God that is caring and loving towards all those who are faithful to Him, giving His blessings and graces to all those who trust in Him, and who fear Him and give to Him what is due for Him, namely honour, respect and due worship. This is the promise that God gives to all those who keep their faith in Him, that He will not leave them, but bless them and remain with them forever.

And linking to these two readings is what St. Paul mentioned in his letter to the Hebrews, where he highlighted the fact that Jesus, who was crucified, suffered and died for the sake of all the people, is the One true great High Priest of all, who offered not the sacrifice of animals and grains, but a different sacrifice that is His own Body, and His own Blood.

And He offered it not many times, but just once for the sake of the salvation of the whole world. The offering of His own Body and Blood, the offering of His worthy life has been accepted by God, as the one and only perfect sacrifice that is worthy to absolve us all from all the accumulations of our sins. God has given us all this grace and opportunity for us to be freed from the tyranny and hold of sin.

Then finally, in the Gospel today, Jesus spoke about how the way that He has revealed to us is not the path of pride and worldliness, but instead, we have to chart for ourselves a new path and follow a new life according to the will of God our Lord and Father. And this new path is shown by how Jesus rebuked His own disciples, St. James and St. John who asked to be favoured over the others by asking Jesus to give them the favour of sitting on His left and right, essentially a very great honour.

But these two disciples were basically thinking in terms of worldly power and glory, and they were thinking in terms of human glory, fame and honour, but they did not understand the true meaning of God’s Law and intentions for mankind. They thought that to follow Jesus means to share in His glory and honour, as well as majesty and greatness, and this is not surprising, as the normal ways of this world demand that we demand and seek for glory, fame and recognition in the eyes of one another.

After all, in this world, many of those who serve kings and rulers dress nicely and attempt to show that they are the best dressed and best in appearance before their master and trying to garner his or her favour by doing so. And yet, with Jesus, who is truly the King of all kings, and Lord of all lords, things are very different indeed.

For His kingship and kingdom is not of this world, and thus His ways and His methods are different from what we all used to know. If the way of the world is to flaunt greatness, wealth, fame and promote human praise and glory, then the way of our Lord Jesus and King is the way of humility, of loving service and genuine care to all those whom He is Lord over, and that is why He told His disciples, that whoever wants to be great from among His disciples must be a servant to all.

It is too often in this world that mankind uses power and influence to control and to oppress those who are subordinated to them, and they use all these to maintain their power, their privileges and their status, not willing to lose or be reduced in any of them. They desire for ever more and more worldly goods, worldly power, fame and influence, and this is why we mankind by our nature always bicker, enter into conflict and wars, and end up bringing suffering upon another or even resorting to murder and destruction of life.

The Lord teaches us that His way is not the way of greed, or of succumbing to our personal desires and jealousy upon others and what they had and what we do not have with us. He teaches us that to become greater in His eyes does not mean the same as being great in the eyes of the world. On the contrary, the greater a person has become, the more humble he or she should become, and become even less attached to their glory and desires.

It is difficult for us to detach from all these worldliness and human desires, as it is in our human nature to want even more when we already have something with us. And the more we have, the more difficult it is for us to resist that temptation to seek for even more. And the most important reason is that, we mankind are always looking for something that can satisfy our needs and wants, but all the things and goods of this world prove to be unsatisfactory in providing what we need.

After all, all the money and possessions, all the material goods in the world that we have cannot buy for us true happiness and joy. They can only provide us with happiness that is illusory, temporary and impermanent. And as I have just mentioned, that we mankind always grow in our greed and desire as we have more things with us? This is why we can never be satisfied with whatever this world is able to offer.

On the contrary, what truly can provide us with true happiness and satisfaction, is the satisfaction that comes from the Lord alone. It is only God alone who can give us and provide us with true happiness, that is by the provision of His words, His Law, His truth and His perfect love, that He fills us up with, that all of us are needing right now, to liberate us from our own sinfulness, stubbornness, and inability to live in accordance to the way of the Lord.

This is why, on this day, the Feast of St. Luke the Apostle and Evangelist, we should all reflect on the Holy Gospels, which the Apostles had written and composed by the power of the Holy Spirit, to provide us with God’s truth and love, through the words they have written in the Four holy Gospels. The Gospels and the entirety of the Holy Scriptures are the repository and evidence of the truth and the words of God that all of us have heard, witnessed and shared, and thus we believe in Him from whom the words came.

And as today is also the celebration of the Mission Sunday, by this we should all realise that all of us are the bearers of God’s Gospel to the world, for there are indeed many of those our brethren, who are still living in the darkness of this world, and which by our actions and deeds, we may bring the revelation of God’s truth to them, so that they may be saved too, just as we have been saved.

Many of us mankind are still living in ignorance of the truth of the Lord, blinded by darkness and sin, and the light provided by the truth in the Gospels are truly necessary for us all to be able to liberate one another from the effects of darkness that had covered our souls and bring all of us into the light of Christ our Lord. It is the mission which our Lord had given and entrusted to all of us, to bring His light to the nations.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, let us all remember the mission which our Lord Jesus Christ had given to all of His disciples before the time when He was about to depart back from this world to His heavenly Father. This mission is that all of us bring all mankind, from all the nations and from the whole world, to receive baptism in the Holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Name of the Most Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And the way to do this is by proclaiming God’s truth, the truth of His words and the light of His truth by practicing our faith in our own actions, and showing our adherence and faith in God’s truth by showing these through all that we do to our fellow men, and through our commitment to the Lord and His ways. Let us all be missionaries of the Faith to one another, and in particular to those who lives are still in darkness, and who still have yet to hear the word and the truth of God.

May Almighty God be with us always, bless us all in our endeavours and works, so that in all the things that we say and do, we may bring more souls closer to the salvation in God. God bless us all, now and forever. Amen.