JMJ
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The Readings for the 23rd Tuesday, Tempus per Annum (C2)
Everyone in the crowd sought to touch him because power came forth from him and healed them all.
Luke 6:19 (NABRE)
WHEN THE ANGEL Spoke to Mary (in Luke 1:32) she was told she would have a Son and she should call him Jesus. Later, that same angel shared with Joseph, “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21) The linkage of the name “Jesus” to “Joshua” is usually emphasized, the latter meaning “the LORD saves” and “Iesus” is the Greek form of Joshua. But there is something deeper. Much deeper. Jesus was not named in Greek. And while “Iesus” is the Greek form of his name, in Hebrew the name is Yeshua. However, add a silent “h” sound and change the accent and we get ‘yeshuah’ which means Salvation.
It’s not that “Jesus Saves” as the bumper sticker has it, but rather that Jesus is Salvation in his person. What is “Salvation” though? What is the meaning or the content, if you will, of being saved? The Gospel today points it out: There’s calling, there’s accepting the call, there’s the renaming. There’s hearing the teaching and there’s healing.
Please note that everything in this is a sort of dialogue. Jesus calls, we accept the call and Jesus renames us. Jesus teaches and we accept the teaching then Jesus heals us. The whole Gospel is encapsulated in one pericope of 7 verses if we but use our eyes to see it. But salvation is a dance in which God leads, but we follow, in which God heals, but only what we offer him for healing, in which God loves us and gives us the grace to love him in return.
When we open our ears to the call of Jesus and allow ourselves to be drawn into the dance, our entire identity is changed: we go from being trapped in worldly ideas about who we are to entering into a right relationship with God. When I was Chrismated into the Orthodox Church, as the priest was wiping off the sacred oils from my face and eyes, he said to me – quoting St Paul – “you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” This was my new identity and I was even given a new name – for St Raphael, the Bishop of Brooklyn. As a saint stands in right relationship to God, so – by the prayers of many – I may one day grow into the fullness of that right relationship. But I have to forego all the things that hold me to the world.
There is no part of me (or perceived part of me) that I can point at and say, “But that one thing I will keep.” I can no longer base my identity on anything that is mine – only on Jesus, who is not Mine save that I am his. And to be his I have to let go of all the brokenness I value, all the things that I think make up “who I really am”. I must let Yeshua be my yeshuah. I must let Jesus be Jesus to me.
Otherwise all this is in vain. Jesus will make me whole but only when and as I let him. If I hold back he will not force his way in – but then I will not be saved.
In the end the things that I thought of as I, me, and mine that are not part of Jesus were never mind in the first place. And the things that are missing from the fallen me, will be found in him and will be mine for all eternity as our love deepens to infinity in contemplation of the Father.
– Shilo Ben Hod
Lyrics in Translation:
Verse 1
I won’t seek what is missing
But I will search for the One who fills
In a dry or fertile land
More than anything, I need You only
Even life is not good
If at the end people die without knowing You
If I could choose anything, I’ll choose You
Chorus
It’s better to lose everything, just to gain You
And to pay the price, in the end everything is Yours
To go all they way until the end, because only in the end I’ll meet You
And then everything that is missing, will be completed in You
Verse 2
I’m not searching for all the answers
But I’m asking for the truth that is in You
When confusion rules or there is clarity
Above all, let me know You
All of the miracles won’t help
If people never experience Your love
If I could choose anything, I’ll choose You
Doxos 
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