The 24th Sunday of the Year
Is 50:5-9A; Ps 116; Jas 2:14-18; Mk 8:27-35 (Year B)
‘I love the Lord for he has heard the cry of my appeal, for he turned his ear to me in the day when I called him.” The prayer of the psalmist expresses gratitude for the God who hears the cry of his people.
Throughout Israel’s long history this listening God had responded. To the cries of their enslavement in Egypt he had responded with the deliverance of the Exodus. To the deprivations of their 40 years in the wilderness he had responded with the gift of a land that would be their own. This God, who had been with his people in deliverance and conquest, would now be with them in a completely new and unexpected way. “For my part, I made no resistance, neither did I turn away. I offered my back to those who struck me, my cheeks to those who tore at my beard. I did not cover my face against insult and spittle.”
