Bishop Gregory’s homily on the Sunday of the Finding of Our Lord in the Temple.
Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral,
January 5, 2025
If you ever are facing something very difficult or something very risky or something very dangerous, this gospel has something hidden, a hidden treasure for you. This gospel is not just a story of little boy teaching elders in the temple. It's a beautiful story of Jesus coming of age, 12 years old.
We don't know too much about our Lord's hidden life, what he did from the childbirth to all the way to 30 years old. But we have this story, what he was doing when he was 12 years old. We also know that his family fled into Egypt. We know that he spent some time there, and then we know the family went back to Nazareth. And then we assume that he worked with his father as a carpenter in Nazareth.
But the story says very clearly that Jesus and his parents went every year. This is a key point. Every year to Jerusalem. So Jesus was very familiar with Jerusalem, beautiful temple, huge temple. In that temple, they would sacrifice animals depending on the big the bigness of the sin.
For a small sin, a small animal, for a big sin, a bullock, for something. And the priests were all priests from the order of Aaron, the order of Levi, who was this this Levitical priesthood based everything on someone would pay some money, bring a sacrificial animal, and the priest would then sacrifice that child that that, animal in the temple. But Jesus also knew another story. He knew the story of Melchizedek. The story of Melchizedek is very mysterious.
Abraham met Melchizedek, and Melchizedek blessed him, and Abraham gave him 1 tenth of his possessions. In other words, this mysterious priest who offered bread and wine offered a sacrifice, and and Abraham gave him 1 tenth, what's called a tithe. That's where we get the word tithing. One tithing of his possessions. So Jesus knew that story too and probably had a difficult time understanding the temple with the order of Aaron and Levi and the priesthood according to Melchizedek.
And in the Psalms and in the other passages of the old testament, we show Melchizedek not having a beginning, not having an end. And he offered bread and wine. Does that remind you of anything? Now this is 100 of years before our Lord Jesus. But Jesus being a pious Jewish person, his mother and father would have told him, taught him the Psalms, taught him the passages of the Old Testament.
So Jesus knew both. Now just to peak your curiosity a little bit more, Jesus knew that. He knew there was another kind of priesthood, a priesthood that offered bread and wine, a priesthood where the priest never died and the priest had no beginning. And I wonder every year when he went to Jerusalem, if he wondered what that priesthood meant to him. To him personally.
Now if you get the picture, there is this huge, big operation called the Jewish temple. And Jesus is small little 12 year old. And then at the same time, there's this other tradition of the Jewish people that talked about a priesthood that would last forever. A priesthood that would not depend on the sacrificing of animals. Now I wanna give you 3 stories to round out this image.
The story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. You remember the story? He was in Samaria. Shouldn't have been there because most Jews avoided Samaria, but he went directly. Jesus did not avoid troubles.
He did not avoid conflicts. He didn't beg for them, but he didn't avoid them. So he went in the midst of Samaria, and there was a woman who came to the well. And the dialogue back and forth, he said, give me some water. She said, you a Jew.
Why can you're asking me. You're a man. I'm a woman. You shouldn't be asking me. We shouldn't be meeting.
To make a long story short, the woman said, don't you Jews worship at the temple? And Jesus said this, there will come a day when we will not worship on this mount or this mount, but in spirit and in truth. Remember that? 2nd, do you remember the story of Jesus cleansing the temple? He had had it with the buying and selling of animals, with it money changing back and forth, all in the temple.
He felt that this temple was being desecrated by the acts of people, men and women. So he threw the animals out. He threw the money changers out. And then he they said, what authority do you have to do this? And he said, was the baptism of John from God or from others?
And they said, we don't know. He said, nor do I know how to tell you my authority. That's the second. And the third is this, when he was when he was confronted for doing that in the temple, he said, destroy this temple and in 3 days, I will raise it up. So Jesus understanding the temple as the temple of his own body.
Now, you might be able to see the tremendous risk, the tremendous danger, the tremendous, dangerous situation that Jesus went every year to the temple. He must have been thinking in the back of his mind, one day, I will be that sacrificial animal. One day, it will be my blood that's sprinkled on the altar. One day, there will no longer be the priesthood of Aaron. It'll be the priesthood of Melchizedek, me.
One day my body will be that temple in which people will worship. And so with Jesus himself became the sacrifice. He became the temple. He became the God with us. That's why I say there's something hidden in this story for anybody facing any difficulties, facing something really big in their life, facing something really risky, really dangerous.
What did Jesus do? He turned to his father. Father, not my will, but yours. Father, I place myself in your hands. And when Mary and Joseph asked, son, why did you do this to me?
He said, didn't you know I must be about my father's house? There's another translation, which is even better. The Arabic picks it up perfectly. Jesus didn't say, I must be in my father's house. He said, I must be about whatever concerns my father.
I must be about whatever concerns my father. And so the father brought him to this dangerous point, brought him to this difficult point, but he didn't just drop him. Even through his passion and his death, he raised him up from the dead. And this is the good news, brothers and sisters. This is the wonderful news of Christmas.
This is the wonderful news for all of us who go through difficulties in life, death, illness, difficulties that we we turn ourselves to the father and say, father, let your will be done in me. I must be about my father's will, and I'm not afraid. Because even through death and darkness, God, as he was with his beloved son, is with me. Let us place ourselves in our father's care that you and I can face almost anything, not almost. We can face everything with a big God even when we're small.
May God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be with us now and forever.