The Twenty First Sunday In Ordinary Time Year C.

Readings

Isaiah 66: 18-21
Hebrew12: 5-7, 11-13
Luke 13: 22-30

Theme: Let us endure our trials and severe challenges as means of discipline to our Christian commitments: the lord disciples him whom he loves.

Last Sunday the Second Reading from the Letter to the Hebrews concluded with a challenging statement:

“In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.”

It is in our struggles against sin that we experience the pain that goes with being disciplined.

Christ is the best example of endurance through the pain of being disciplined. Christ obeyed to the point of death and death on the cross.  He resisted the devil and sin until He shed His blood on the cross.  That is discipline of the highest order.

Today’s Second Reading is the continuation of Last Sunday’s Second Reading and it goes on to re-emphasize the pains we have to endure as we are disciplined: “My son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor lose courage when you are punished by Him.  For the Lord disciplines him whom He loves and scourges every son whom He receives.  It is for discipline that you have to endure.”    This is the reason why Christ can emphatically state that He did not come to bring peace but division. 

Jesus is not shy to make uncompromising statements that may not be sweet to the ears.  So as He continues to teach, He journeyed to Jerusalem without fear of what He was going to face.  He was going to undergo the discipline of the cross as the step to Victory.  The crucifixion is the DISCIPLINE to VICTORY and Jesus was determined to go to Jerusalem in order to go through the discipline of the cross.

Because of the hardness of the discipline to SANCTITY, someone asked, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?”  So one can see how humanity reacts to what Jesus teaches.  So Jesus goes on to say that a life of HOLINESS is a struggle: “Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”

So it is imperative to endure discipline.   “For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?  For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

Therefore, be courageous and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet so that what is LAME may not be put out of joint but rather be healed and enter the Kingdom of God by that narrow gate.

The Lord will come soon to gather all nations and tongues in order for them to see his glory after being disciplined by the unpleasant pain of the exile.

Let us take our painful challenges in life as moments of discipline for the life of Holiness.