Readings:
Hosea 1-3
John 13

Hosea 1-3

The prophets by and large got the short end of the stick in this life, from being ignored and abused to outright murder in some cases, but Hosea gets a special case that to me is worse than being sawn in half like Isaiah. I guess that’s easy for me to say, being in a happy marriage and never having been cut in two by an evil king, but this story just breaks my heart.

Hosea is called to be a living analogy for the marriage covenant between God and Israel. And to make this analogy accurate as possible, Hosea will be loving and faithful, he will forgive and reconcile with his wife over and over, even if she’s not completely contrite and remorseful, just like God is with Israel through their entire history. To play the role of Israel, the unfaithful and often ungrateful wife of God, Hosea will be told to marry a prostitute. Yep, he is told to marry a prostitute, and not even like one that’s retired, but an active worker in that field.

God tells Hosea to prophecy against Israel and Judah and tell the, of the coming exile for both kingdoms, but that any who turn to him and repent he will bring back to the land. He promises a future when the people will no longer serve God as a “lord” of the land, but they’ll be together as spouses. This can be seen as a messianic prophecy where the marriage feast is being alluded to here.

John 13

We’re nearing Our Lord’s passion and have arrived at Holy Thursday where Jesus washes the feet of the disciples as a show of service, love and humility. In the Catholic Church we recognize the events of the last supper as the institution of the priesthood and of the Eucharist, and this foot-washing scene plays directly into the priesthood part of that dynamic. In exodus 40 we see Moses washing Arron and his sons in preparation for their ordination into the priesthood, and that is an often overlooked part of what’s happening here.

You can really appreciate John’s writing style in parts of his Gospel where it kind of diverges from the synoptic gospels and adds what’s kind of like editorial commentary. In the other gospels we see Jesus foretelling his betrayal and everyone taking turns to ask if it’s them, and only in Matthew does he confirm it’s Judas when it’s his turn to ask. But in John we see Peter taking John aside and getting him to probe a little deeper to see who it is, and he says that the person he hands the dipped bread to is the betrayer, and then hands the bread to Judas. John then remarks that at this moment satan enters Judas and he goes out to do his bidding. But this is all obviously hindsight commentary, because the apostles don’t know he’s leaving to betray him, John even says that they think he’s leaving to go buy something. It’s on,y because John is writing the last gospel and has had decades to reflect on these things that he adds these comments, especially when he’s talking about Judas.

Jesus tells them he’s going to the cross and it’s some the must do alone, but they don’t understand him in the moment, and Peter speaks up to say he’ll go anywhere with him even to the death. But Jesus tells him that he will not, and he’ll actually deny even knowing Jesus. That scene I’m the passion when Jesus turns and looks at Peter has always been especially poignant to me, and I bet it cut Peter to the heart too when he remembered these words of Our Lord.

Tomorrow’s Readings:
Hosea 4-6
John 14