Readings:
Isaiah 6
Proverbs 4
John 20

Isaiah 6

Isaiah has a vision in the year that king Uzziah died. That’s an important event to note, not just because years were marked in those days by the year of the reign of the sitting monarch, but also because this is where Isaiah’s calling as a prophet really kicks into gear. He’s specifically commissioned, either in heaven or in a dreamlike state where he was experiencing heaven, by God to carry a Message to the nation of Judah and to continue with the overall message of judgment and the particular other messages when given, until his own death.

Isaiah is marked by a burning coal from the altar in heaven, and is sealed to be cleansed of his sins and commissioned to preach a message of judgment, destruction, repentance and ultimately of hope for one to come.

Interestingly we see the angels singing the hymn that we sing at every mass, they sing the hymn of glory to the thrice holy God.

John 20

Mary Magdalene arrives and sees the tomb is open so she goes to get the disciples. The reason she was going to the tomb is because the burial was somewhat hastily done on Good Friday because the next day was a high sabbath (being the Passover and a sabbath day together) so she was going to properly prepare the Body according to the customs of the day. But the stone being rolled away was a game changer and she went to gather the rest of the group.

John makes note of the linens being folded neatly on the stone bench inside the tomb. These linens have a significance because a grave robber wouldn’t take the time to fold them up and leave them but carry off the body, and often times they rather steal the linens and leave the body because you can’t really fence a dead body, but there was a marked for cloth. Also they may have had a deeper theological significance like the Seamless Garment that the soldiers gambled for at the foot of the cross.

Jesus appears to the apostles that evening and breaths on them, and tells them that he’s giving them the power to forgive and retain sins. This power is ever through the successors of the apostles (our present day bishops) and their priests. This is most often seen in the sacrament of reconciliation or confession, where the priest offers us absolution of our sins.

John closes this chapter with a note that these gospels, even his own gospel, don’t contain the entirety of Jesus’ public life and miracles he performed. How could they? He ministered throughout the land of Galilee, Judea and Samaria for three years, and probably healed someone every day, but we can’t have a record of all of it because that’s volumes and volumes of books, especially back in the times before paper and the printing press. These are just a collection of the most important things Jesus done, and John wants us to know that.

Tomorrow’s Readings:
Isaiah 7
Proverbs 5
John 21