Then, Nehemiah, that is, His Excellency, and Ezra, the priest-scribe and the Levites who were instructing the people said to all the people: “Today is holy to the LORD your God. Do not be sad, and do not weep”- for all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law. Nehemiah 8:9 

Often enough, as a priest I am privileged, especially in the Reconciliation room, to witness women and men weeping when they are touched by God’s grace and return to him after many long years of absence from the Church. 

There are tears of joy because how they feel inside is something they have not felt in the longest time. But there are also tears of sadness because they realize their foolishness in sinning and in missing out on what God alone can offer them. 

The scene described in today’s 1st reading (Nehemiah 8:2-4, 5-6, 8-10) shows the hunger for God’s Word in the hearts of the displaced Hebrews, who had returned to the Promised Land after many long years of exile, their tears of sadness for having broken his Law and the joy for having found it again. 

Now, let us pause to think: if those Hebrew exiles were so moved by God’s Word found in the Old Testament, how much more should we shed tears of joy and tears of sadness every time we come in touch with Jesus, the Father’s final Word of life, addressed to us individually and as a community of faith whenever we attend Holy Mass? 

Those Hebrew exiles could find light, guidance, purpose and comfort from their willful exposure to God’s Word.  

We, super-blessed and incredibly privileged children of God, are exposed to his words of life whenever we assemble in here to represent to ourselves and relive the Life Jesus gives us through his death and resurrection. 

The gospel passage (Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21) directs us forcefully to become aware of the grace-filled timing of each of our encounters with God’s Word. 

What Luke describes as happening in the synagogue of Nazareth is happening also whenever we encounter Christ Jesus in the context of hearing his words of life. 

We must interpret what took place on that Sabbath in Nazareth from Jesus’ standpoint and his knowledge of the immediate and pressing needs of his fellow-citizens. 

Jesus went back and forth unrolling down and rolling up the scroll of the prophet Isaiah until he found exactly the passage (Isaiah 61: 1-ff) describing in detail what the Lord God desired to do for the people of Nazareth to meet their need for salvation and to give them freedom, purpose and comfort. 

The passage he found covered thoroughly the mission assigned to him by the Father.  

Having said that, I must point out to you a line from that famous passage with which the people of Nazareth were familiar and were eager to hear, but which Jesus omitted. … and a day of vindication by our God 

Every single time we gather in our church to hear the words of life, which Jesus chooses for our salvation and to bring us freedom, purpose and comfort, it is absolutely necessary for us to remember that we are NEVER to fear a day of vindication by our God. 

Ours must be mostly tears of joy because we are gathered to re-present and to re-live, as a community of faith, the very fact that the day of vindication by our God was consumed on Mount Calvary with the last drop of blood shed by our Lord on the cross. 

Whenever we gather for a Eucharistic Celebration, we must be mindful that we are the beneficiaries of two miracles: one as a community, a segment of the Father’s universal Family and another as individuals about whom the Father has such an accurate care that he alone keeps the exact number of strands of hair on our heads. 

Every time we hear God’s words, we should picture Jesus unrolling down and rolling up a scroll of the Holy Scripture until he finds exactly what he intends to do for us and with us. 

Being this the Father’s intention for each one of us and for our community, on a regular basis, we should spend some serious time to become aware of what glad tidings we are in desperate need to hear, because of the critical situation in which we find ourselves; liberty from the type of slavery that shackles us: it could be addiction to pornography, or drugs, alcohol, gambling, resentment, jealousy, pettiness or something else; the recovery of sight from the blindness caused by prejudice, ideologies, indifference and self-interest.   

And, most importantly, we ought to be always able, with the help of the Holy Spirit, year after year, to conduct ourselves in a way acceptable to the Lord. 

As we grow in our knowledge of God’s Law and of his direct intervention to bring us salvation, freedom, comfort and purpose, we should feel more than thrilled; we should be bursting with expectation as we hear the words of life the Lord chooses for us. 

The statement: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” must be taken always as a guarantee from Jesus’ own mouth that we are yanked away from our sinful past, fleeting present and uncertain future, and lifted onto God’s endless NOW. 

Our God doesn’t have a past, a present and a future, but is living in an endless, eternal, unaffected-by-time NOW. 

Whenever the Scripture passage chosen by Jesus is heard and embraced by us, we are assured that all of God’s power, love, compassion and light are focused on us and on our situation. 

I promise you, if we learn to listen to God’s words with this thought in the back of our mind, we will have many opportunities to shed tears of sadness for our past of poor choices and tears of joy for his love and mercy.