The Scientific and Scriptural Impact of Amos’ Earthquake



by Steven A. Austin, Ph.D. *

The Bible is often regarded as a book of stories based on a primitive people's understanding of the world around them. As such, many people--and even some Christians--believe that it is not a reliable source of history. But science continues to prove them wrong.

An Ancient Earthquake
The Kings of Israel and Judah ruled during the period of time designated as the Iron Age by archaeologists. Widely separated archaeological excavations in the countries of Israel and Jordan contain late Iron Age (Iron IIb) architecture bearing damage from a great earthquake.¹ Masonry walls best display the earthquake's effects, especially those with broken ashlars or displaced rows of stones, walls that are still standing but are leaning or bowed, and collapsed walls with large sections still lying course-on-course.
Earthquake evidence is seen prominently at Hazor, Israel's largest ancient city. In excavations beginning in 1955 by archaeologist Yigael Yadin, twenty-two successive cities were discovered to have been built on top of each other.² Excavations in Hazor's Stratum VI revealed tilted walls, inclined pillars, and collapsed houses. In the Iron Age building called "Ya'el's House" within Stratum VI, objects of daily use were found beneath the fallen ceiling. General southward collapse within Stratum VI argues that the earthquake waves were propagated from the north. After more than 50 years of excavations at Hazor, earthquake damage continues to be revealed in even some of the strongest architecture.
The city of Gezer was also severely shaken. The outer wall of the city shows hewn stones weighing tons that have been cracked and displaced several inches off their foundation. The lower part of the wall was displaced outward (away from the city), whereas the upper part of the wall fell inward (toward the city) still lying course-on-course.³ This indicates that the wall collapsed suddenly.
A Magnitude 8 Event
Earthquake debris at six sites (Hazor, Deir 'Alla, Gezer, Lachish, Tell Judeideh, and 'En Haseva) is tightly confined stratigraphically to the middle of the eighth century B.C., with dating errors of ~30 years.⁴ So, the evidence points to a single large regional earthquake that occurred about 750 B.C. The accompanying map displays the site intensity (Modified Mercalli Intensity from archaeology or literature) and lines of equal intensity of shaking (isoseismals).
The epicenter was clearly north of present-day Israel, as indicated by the southward decrease in degree of damage at archaeological sites in Israel and Jordan. The epicenter was likely in Lebanon on the plate boundary called the Dead Sea transform fault. A large area of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah was shaken to inflict "general damage" to well-built structures (what is called Modified Mercalli Intensity 9 or higher). The distance from the epicenter (north of Israel) to the region of "significant damage" to well-built structures (what is called Modified Mercalli Intensity 8 that is south of Israel) was at least 175 kilometers, but could have been as much as 300 kilometers.
Using the pattern and the intensity of damage through the region of the earthquake, the earthquake's magnitude can be estimated. Through a process known as scaling, the damage areas of smaller historic earthquakes of known magnitude are used to scale upward to estimate the area of damage and magnitude of the regional earthquake. Based on this method, the earthquake in question was at least magnitude 7.8, but more likely was 8.2.⁵ This magnitude 8 event of 750 B.C. appears to be the largest yet documented on the Dead Sea transform fault zone during the last four millennia. The Dead Sea transform fault likely ruptured along more than 400 kilometers as the ground shook violently for over 90 seconds! The urban panic created by this earthquake would have been legendary.
Scriptural References
In the mid-eighth century B.C., a shepherd-farmer named Amos of Tekoa de livered an ex tra ordinary speech at the Temple of the Golden Calf in the city of Bethel in the northern kingdom of Israel just "two years before the earthquake" (Amos 1:1). Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam II was king of Israel. Amos spoke of the land being shaken (8:8), houses being smashed (6:11), altars being cracked (3:14), and even the Temple at Bethel being struck and collapsing (9:1). The prophet's repeated contemporary references to the earthquake's effects is why it bears his name.
Amos' Earthquake impacted Hebrew literature immensely.⁶ After the gigantic earthquake, no Hebrew prophet could predict a divine visitation in judgment without alluding to an earthquake. Just a few years after the earthquake, Isaiah wrote about the "Day of the Lord" when everything lofty and exalted will be abased at the time when the Lord "ariseth to shake terribly the earth" (Isaiah 2:19, 21). Then, Isaiah saw the Lord in a temple shaken by an earthquake (Isaiah 6:4).
Joel repeats the motto of Amos: "The Lord also will roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem," and adds the seismic theophany imagery "the heavens and the earth shall shake" (Joel 3:16; compare Amos 1:2). After describing a future earthquake and panic during the "Day of the Lord" at Messiah's coming to the Mount of Olives, Zechariah says, "Yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah" (Zechariah 14:5). The panic caused by Amos' Earthquake must have been the topic of legend in Jerusalem, because Zechariah asked his readers to recall that terrifying event 230 years later.
The author of Hebrews asks us to keep in mind the coming cosmic shakedown that will finally usher in the future "kingdom which cannot be moved" (Hebrews 12:28). In light of God's marvelous promises to those who believe, "let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear."

References

1. Austin, S.A., G. W. Franz, and E. G. Frost. 2000. Amos's Earthquake: An extraordinary Middle East seismic event of 750 B.C. International Geology Review. 42 (7): 657-671.
2. Yadin, Y. 1975. Hazor, the rediscovery of a great citadel of the Bible. New York: Random House, 280 pp.
3. Younker, R. 1991. A preliminary report of the 1990 season at Tel Gezer, excavations of the "Outer Wall" and the "Solomonic" Gateway (July 2 to August 10, 1990). Andrews University Seminary Studies. 29: 19-60.
4. Austin et al, Amos's Earthquake.
5. Austin et al, Amos's Earthquake.
6. Ogden, K. 1992. The earthquake motif in the book of Amos. In Schunck, K., and M. Augustin, eds., Goldene apfel in silbernen schalen. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 69-80; Freedman, D.N., and A. Welch. 1994. Amos's earthquake and Israelite prophecy. In Coogan, M.D., J. C. Exum, and L. E. Stager, eds., Scripture and other artifacts: essays on the Bible, and archaeology in honor of Philip J. King. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 188-198.

* Dr. Austin is Senior Research Scientist and Chair of the Geology Department.

Cite this article: Austin, S. 2010. The Scientific and Scriptural Impact of Amos' Earthquake. Acts & Facts. 39 (2): 8-9.

....

Taken from: http://www.icr.org/article/scientific-scriptural-impact-amos-earthquake/

Jonah sinks deeper and deeper

 

 

....

 

Jonah's Sleep

 

Jonah seemed completely unconcerned with this terrifying storm and utterly detached from the sailors' distress. While the sailors dashed about to save themselves, Jonah nonchalantly went down into the hull of the ship and fell asleep. With each step of the narrative Jonah descended lower and lower. In verse 3 Jonah went down to Joppa; then he went down into the ship. Now, in 1:5, Jonah went down below deck and lied down. By lying down below deck he was physically as low as he could get. He was now below the sailors in both a literal and figurative sense. If that wasn't enough, he descended even further in his escape from God by falling into a deep sleep. And what a sleep it must have been, for he slept through a storm that terrified even veteran seamen. Previously Jonah showed no concern for the Ninevites and here he showed no concern for the lives of the sailors. This demonstrates just how insensate Jonah was to his fellow travelers and God's heart.

 

The word for deep sleep, radam, is the same word used when Adam was put into a deep sleep in Eden before the creation of the woman (Genesis 2:21). So at another level of the story, Jonah is further identified with Adam. When Adam fell he brought a calamity upon all mankind. The curse of sin has enveloped the whole world with no escape no matter what gods we call upon or what we attempt through our own efforts to deliver ourselves.

 

This segment resembles the story of Jesus sleeping while He and His disciples crossed the Sea of Galilee with a huge storm threatening to sink their boat (see Mark 4:35-41 and Luke 8:22-25). The similarity is too close for coincidence. Clearly God wants us to link the Sea of Galilee storm incident with this portion of the Jonah story. When the disciples woke Jesus and He calmed the storm we are told, "in fear and amazement [the disciples] asked one another, 'Who then is this, that He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him?'" (Luke 8:25). Based on the image of wind and water discussed earlier this incident tells us more than that Jesus commands the natural elements. In fact, when the disciples asked one another this question they were paraphrasing Psalm 107:29 where Yahweh was identified as the one who quiets the wind and the water of the storms at sea. This image tells us that Jesus is master over all - the spiritual and physical realms. He is Yahweh, sovereign Lord of all.

 

....

 

Taken from: http://www.ldolphin.org/jonah/jonah1.html



Prophet Amos or a Jonah?



So You See Yourself as a Prophet? An Amos or a Jonah?
by Vernard Eller

 

This work may be freely reproduced and distributed provided that that no changes are made, no revenues are collected beyond the nominal cost of media, and credit is given to the author. Any other use requires the written permission of the author. Citing this material on other Internet sites is encouraged, but is to be done only by providing a hypertext reference to this file on this server.

Bible selections are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 (NRSV) by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

With some regularity today's social activists of the Christian Left appeal to the Old Testament prophets as precedent for their confrontational protest-witness against the powers. I here want to suggest that we will be in better position to evaluate that claim if we first decide whether, by "Old Testament prophet," we mean Amos or Jonah. There's a difference.
To launch the inquiry I now offer parallel, diagrammed sentences characterizing the work and message of Amos and of Jonah (conveniently ignoring Obadiah, whose book accidentally is sandwiched between the two we want to compare):

	AMOS	JONAH
1	THE HOLY GOD	The Tandem of HOLY GOD and HOLY-JEW JONAH
2	acts in weeping judgment	acts in dry-eyed condemnation of
3	UNHOLY HUMANITY	UNHOLY NINEVITES
4	to bring it to his Wine Festival	to bring them to Destruction

Amos (1)

Both Amos and Jonah betray a certain reticence regarding their callings--though the significance is entirely different in the two cases. First, regarding Amos, notice that he is not so much as named in the sentence-diagram pertaining to him. That is at his own request:

I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son; (Amos 7:14a)

"It would be wrong to name me along with the Holy God--as though I were somehow his colleague, confidant, or representative."

but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees,, and the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, "Go, prophesy to my people Israel." (Amos 7:14b-15)

"If you insist on naming me in your sentence, it should be down at No. 3, under 'Unholy Humanity.' God did commandeer my mouth--but I deserve no credit for that nor does it in any way affect my status. It clearly was not the case that he chose me because I was a 'prophet,' a holy man, an authority on holiness, or anything of the sort. I certainly hope you haven't been hearing me as thought I think I have the right and capability of making moral judgments on peoples, kings, and nations--showing them where they are wrong and telling them what they will have to do to get right in my eyes. I'm no prophet--nor even as much as a son of one."

Jonah (1)

Jonah, on the other hand, sees no problem at all in being identified with the Lord God of Israel. In fact, particularly in the face of no-good pagans, he is positively eager to so identify himself (whether God agrees or not):

I am a Hebrew .... I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. (Jon. 1:9)

Well, yes, he was stretching it a bit as to how much he worships the Lord; yet it doesn't hurt to strike a little fear into dumb pagans by letting them know with just whom they are dealing. And thus Jonah's reticence regarding his prophetic calling comes at a quite different point from Amos'. Jonah had a premonition (correct, as it proved) that the Lord might not let him be as big, tough, and damning a prophet as he had in mind for himself to be.
"What kind of a God of 'holy justice' do you think you are? --Going soft on these Ninevite devils just when we were set to really lay it in 'em."

Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. (Jon. 4:2)

"And for that matter, just what kind of a 'prophet' do you think this leaves me looking like? Nothing doing. Either the word is 'Yet forty days and poof (and really mean it)--or else I quit."
Where, in the Amos sentence, appears the word "judgment," in the Jonah sentence is the word "condemnation." They are in no wise the same. When the Judge involved is the LORD, then "judgment" is but the necessary first word--the word of diagnosis as to precisely what is the sin-illness at the root of the difficulty, and this word comes first just so the next step of that "judgment" might be whatever redemptive punishment is called for in getting the problem corrected. However, completely to the contrary, "condemnation" is always a last word, after which there is nothing more to be said. Amos speaks judgment--gracious judgment.

Amos (3)

With No. 3, things fall into a true and properly theological alignment. God alone--the one true HOLY--is in the top spot; and all humans and everything that is human (Jews and Gentiles, prophets (including Amos himself), priest, and king) everything here falls equally under God's ultimately-gracious judgment.

Jonah (3)

However, the counterpart Jonah-alignment is not theological at all but is sheerly intra-human partisan politics. Although posing as a zeal for God, the business shows not a hint of the true God's ("gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and repenting of evil") actual involvement. No, the only "holy" is Jonah's holy Jewish self-righteousness and "God" but a name Jonah uses to justify his human-Jewish holy hatred of Ninevites. Under the guise of a "prophet of God," one sinful worldly (leftist) party that deems itself "holy" takes the opportunity to vent its spleen against another sinful worldly (rightist) party it has deemed "demonic." There is nothing of God in it--just political ideologies.

Amos (4)

With Amos, it turns out that--even through all the painful threat and punishment--God's actual purpose was to get people to his Wild and Wonderful Wine Festival:

The time is surely coming, says the LORD, when the one who plows shall overtake the one who reaps, and the treader of grapes the one who sows the seed;
	the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. (Amos 9:13)

Anyone who undertakes to drop a grape seed had better be prepared to leap smartly to one side to avoid having his heels clipped by the cluster-clippers coming closely behind. (Even if God's word is inerrant, I can't help but feel that Amos is exaggerating a bit.) The hills will be loaded with liquor--and the plains inevitably inundated. (I, too, feel the problem that comes with this scripture and so have initiated inquiries as to whether Amos might not permit the insertion of a not to the effect that non-alcoholic beverages will be available for pious prudes like myself.)

Jonah (4)

The very opposite of Amos, with Jonah we wind up with nothing but "grapes of wrath"--and these, too, growing fast and all over the place.
"Jonah," it is the Lord God who speaks, "you are an abomination and object of wrath to me. You are a 'prophet of God' who proclaims your own false Jingoistic Jewish Justice in place of my true justice. Because it offends your own perverted sense of righteousness, you flatly refuse to mention or to represent the grace and mercy of my righteousness. And now here you are bawling your eyes out over the loss of a dumb plant whose shade you valued--while trying to deny me the right to bewail the loss of a whole big cityful of my Ninevite children. I damn you, Jonah: if you can't bring yourself to regard Ninevites, can't you at least shed one little tear fro all those poor Ninevite cows? Amos has the grace to say he is not a prophet, yet is as true a one as they come. You have the gall to call yourself a prophet, but are as far from being one as can be."
I leave it to the readers to judge to what extent this analysis applies to those confrontational activists of the Christian Left who presently clam the status of Old Testament prophets. I will observe only that, in the tradition, being "a prophet of God" certainly is nothing a representative of the tradition takes any joy in being "speaker of judgment"; and our most honored examples were either reluctant to take on God's assignment or were on the lookout for opportunities actually to resign it. And conversely, in scripture, those who do seek the post or take satisfaction in it--these regularly turn out to be the Jonahs, Zedekiahs, Hananiahs, and other "politicians" who are in the wrong spot, doing the wrong thing, for the wrong reasons, in the service of the wrong master.
 

....

Taken from: http://www.hccentral.com/eller1/prophet.html
 

Jonah and the Great Fish

 

by Don Landis

September 5, 2006

 

Taken from: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n1/great-fish

 

.... In this issue of Answers we introduce a series designed to help you think through “apparent incongruities” (scriptures that seem impossible) and to apply apologetics (a reasoned defense of the faith) in affirming the trustworthiness of the Bible. Various authors will be featured. Think of this as an apologetics devotional … and share it with your friends!

For many, the supernatural events recorded in the Bible seem too impossible to be true. .... Such was the case for Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. He actually took scissors to the Gospels and cut out all references to anything supernatural.

1 One such "apparent incongruity" is the account of a reluctant prophet named Jonah who was swallowed by a fish and yet remained alive in its belly for three days (Jonah 1:17–2:10).

To defend the Bible, some people have gone hunting for scientific explanations. What fish is big enough to swallow a man? How could Jonah breathe underwater? How could he survive the digestive juices?

There are plausible explanations for each of these questions (see below), but we must look at this event with knowledge of God’s complete power and sovereignty. Could God have prepared a great fish to be in the vicinity of the foundering ship, to scoop Jonah out of the raging sea, transport him to shore and vomit him up? Absolutely! If He is the all-powerful Creator God, preparing a fish and timing the whole event was not a great drain on His power or ability. He is in no way limited by what He created.

In Matthew 12:40, Jesus used Jonah’s experience as a basis for giving His disciples information about the circumstances of His own time in the grave. The historical fact of the account of Jonah and the fish is linked to the historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. When witnessing, we may feel pressure to try to prove the truth of the account of Jonah, but let’s never forget that the lost are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8), not by our arguing abilities.

Apologetics is a tool God may use, but we can never argue someone into the Kingdom of God. We must simply present the truth of God’s Word and let the Holy Spirit bring conversion. To deny the event is to cut out the supernatural, just like Thomas Jefferson did two centuries ago.

Don Landis is pastor of Community Bible Church in Jackson, Wyoming. He is founder and president of Jackson Hole Bible College (www.jhbc.edu), a one-year program with special emphasis on creation for young adults. Don is also the founding chairman of the board for Answers in Genesis–USA. Jonah: A plausibility study 1.

Are there "great fish" large enough to swallow a man whole?

■Of course! Keep in mind that modern animal classification systems weren’t exactly in use at the time of Jonah. Any aquatic creature could be referred to as a "fish." And we know that there are whales (blue and sperm) and even sharks (great white and whale sharks) that can swallow a man whole. The sperm whale grows to a length of up to 70 feet. Its esophagus is approximately 50 cm (20") wide and "sperm whales don’t have to chew their food - so Jonah could have been swallowed whole." 2 Two marine scientists from Sea World in San Diego hypothesize that it was a great white shark that probably swallowed Jonah.2 2.Could someone survive three days and three nights in a whale’s belly?

■This is the difficult part of the question. There are fish species that surface from the sea and gulp down air into their lungs, like the lungfish for example. But there is no explanation for how air might have been transferred to the stomach. 3.What about the digestive juices?

■The Encarta Encyclopedia reports, "When whales swallow food, it travels through the esophagus to a multi-chambered stomach that resembles the stomachs of ruminant hoofed animals such as cattle, sheep and deer. In the first stomach chamber, a saclike extension of the esophagus, food is crushed. In the second chamber, digestive juices further break down food." 3 If Jonah remained in this first chamber, he only needed to be worried about being crushed rather than digested! Sharks, however, have a much slower metabolism and a human body could last three days without deterioration.2 4.What about other stories?

■There are a number of stories that have been around for over 100 years about whales swallowing men whole. Perhaps the most famous is the story of James Bartley, a whaler on the vessel Star of the East, who reportedly was swallowed by a whale and survived. However, there are a number of questions as to the authenticity of this story, and it should not be used as a "proof" of any kind (just Google "James Bartley" and you’ll see what we mean).

 

The bottom line:

 

1.God needed to discipline a runaway prophet.

2.God did prepare a "great fish" aquatic creature.

3.God brought the runaway prophet and the "great fish" together for His glory and the salvation of a large city.

....

Something greater than Jonah

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Lenten Mission
St. Michael’s Church, Lowell, MA
Wednesday of the First Week of Lent
March 3, 2004
Jonah 3:1-10; Ps 51; Lk 11:29-32

Jonah 3:1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. 6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8 Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” 10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

Luke 11:29 When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation. 31 The queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here! 32 The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!

Living Discipleship involves three steps:

1) Knowing who Jesus is and taking him seriously. Greater than Jonah, Greater than Solomon. Greater than anything or anyone. People make all types of sacrifices to see the Holy Father, but a greater than Holy Father. If the Rolling Stones, or Springsteen, or Jennifer Lopez, were giving a free concert, you could fill up Gilette Stadium, but we have a greater than them here. Jesus is the pearl of great price, the treasure buried in the field, worth selling everything else to obtain. Many Catholics take the gift of God’s incredible presence for granted. They readily profess that they know that God is present in the Eucharist, present in his sacraments, but they live as if he’s not. They’ll spend more time talking to friends on the phone than they will talking to God in prayer. They’ll spend more time shopping on Sunday than they will in Church. They’ll make time for all types of things that they know are not all that important but not make time for God. Lent is a time for us to recalibrate not just what we believe but how we’re acting on our belief. Lent is a time for us first to recognize what an incredible gift God has given us and to make sure that we never take that for granted.

Catholics in the Archdiocese of Boston have been living through a protracted Lent for a couple of years. With all the talk of parish closings, it would be easy for people to start to long for “the way things used to be,” to focus on present difficulties, to complain. But it is also a time for us to focus on what is most important, that we have a greater than Solomon, a greater than Jonah here. Regardless of what building Jesus decides to meet us in, it is still Jesus, who will always be far more important than the building. The focus on who Jesus is will be ever more important during these days, as others practically will be challenging their fellow Catholics to try to think that the building is more important than the one who makes the building holy.

2) The second step is to eliminate whatever is incompatible with that greatness — His wisdom is greater than Solomon’s, his message greater than Jonah. Jonah’s message was one of conversion, of turning away from sin. “40 more days and Nineveh will be destroyed.” “39 more days and Niniveh will be destroyed.” At that message, the pagan city of Nineveh converted. Everyone, from the king down to the dogs, dressed in sackloth and ashes and fasted. God heard their prayer of repentance. We began this Lent one week ago with ashes, when Jesus, through instructed us, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.” This sentence is a translation of Jesus’ first homily. After he was baptized in the Jordan by John, and came out from 40 days in the desert praying and fasting and being tempted by the devil, Jesus was found in Galilee, preaching. His first homily was only 19 words. It likely was something he had spent years getting ready to preach. And his message was: “The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel.” The kingdom of God is at hand because the king is at hand. The king who himself is holy. Therefore, there was a poignant call from Jesus’ own lips to turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.

We see in the episode of the calling of the prophet Isaiah that God allowed Isaiah to see a vision of God surrounded by the Seraphim, who were crying out, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord, God Almighty!” Isaiah’s first reaction was that he was unfit to be there, for he was a man of unclean lips from among a people with unclean lips. God is not just the greatest, but he is also holy, holy, holy, and when one comes into the presence of that holiness, man should feel a little uncomfortable. The same thing happened to St. Peter after the miraculous catch of fish. “Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man.” But in each case, God made the person capable of being in his presence. He sent a seraphim to cleanse Isaiah’s mouth with a coal and Jesus himself cleansed Peter’s heart.

Our second step in living our discipleship is to recognize how holy God is and to cut out from our lives whatever is incompatible with His holiness. It’s to repent. The pagans in Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah. But we have a greater than Jonah here. The same God who purified Isaiah and St. Peter wants to purify us. On the day he triumphed over sin and death, that first Easter Sunday, he created a Sacrament and sent his apostles out with the power over the Holy Spirit to forgive sins in his name. Jesus loved sinners enough to create this sacrament and make it easy and accessible, but his followers need to take advantage of it. Jesus loves sinners but really HATES sin, because our sins killed Him and he knows they will kill us. We don’t know if we even have 40 days left, like the folks in Nineveh. The time to repent is now. This is the second step, eliminating whatever is incompatible with God’s greatness, with God’s holiness.

3) The third step is then to live as Jesus has taught — When I was in Italy there was an interview with an actor who had become famous in pornographic movies. In the course of the interview, the journalist discovered that the actor had gone to Italy’s Catholic University and, contrary to what the reporter might have thought, loved his time there. The porn-star specifically lauded one of the ethics professors there, whose course he said he really enjoyed so much that he never missed a class and actually did well on the final exam. The journalist thought it might be an interesting angle for the story to interview that professor. When asked about his now famous alumnus, the philosophy professor simply said, “that man was never my student.” The reporter then opened up the notebook and repeated some of the things that the student had said, how he had never missed a class, how he had done well on the oral final exam, how he even remembered some of the professor’s notable quips. The professor repeated, however, that he was never his student. “So are you saying he was never in your class?,” the reporter queried. “I didn’t say that,” the professor replied. “He was definitely in my class. I remember even where he used to sit. I think he’s right that he in fact did do well on the final exam, but that man was never my student. To be a student,” he continued, “means more than just attending classes, taking notes and regurgitating the information. To be a student means to put what the teacher taught into practice. And obviously that man was never my student.”

Disciple is just the Greek word for student. To be a disciple of Jesus means more than to know what he said or he did. It means more than believing that he was the Son of God and the Savior of the World. It means putting what the Master said into practice, living by what he taught. To be a disciple of Christ means not just to know how many beatitudes there are, but to become the beatitudes. It means to become more and more like Christ, to allow Christ’s own life and love to flow through our veins.

To be a disciple of Christ is not easy, therefore. It’s to try to become more and more like our teacher. To say this in another way, to be a disciple is to strive to become truly holy, holy like God is, holy like he wants us to become. Pope John Paul II has said that many Catholics seem to be content with living a “mediocre” Christian life, having a “shallow” prayer life, keeping “most” of the commandments. These are people who are, in many cases, like that Italian actor. To be a true disciple means to be zealous for the things of the Lord, to strive to become as good and as holy as God will allow. The Latin word “student” comes from the be zealous, to be on fire.

Jesus once gave the conditions for those who want to be his disciple. They’re stark. They’re challenging. But they’re not impossible, because Jesus would never call us to something impossible. Listen to what he said: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”

Jesus says that if we want to be his disciple, we have to know ahead of time, what it’s going to cost. It’s going to mean putting God in first place in our lives, above everything else. We have to love God more than we love the other members of our family, even more than our life itself. We have to be willing to pick up our Cross daily and follow him. We have to become detached from our possessions, from worldliness, from anything that will keep us from God. In all of this, Jesus never says, merely, “Do what I say,” but rather “follow me!” He’s asking us to love him as he loved us, above everything even his life. He’s asking us to pick the Cross and bear it with love for him and for others, just as he did for us. He’s asking us to let go of everything to follow him all the way, because none of our possessions can fit through the needle’s eye to enter into life and the only things we can take with us are what we give away in acts of love.

We do have a greater than Solomon, greater than Jonah. How lucky we are! He has given us his wisdom, which is a wisdom the world doesn’t have, that goes contrary to the wisdom of the world. But he is the one, the only one, with the words of eternal life. He has loved each of us enough to call us to be his faithful disciples, which is a path of true holiness. May we respond to the grace of Lent, to the grace of this mission, to the grace of this Mass, to live out that faithful discipleship, so that one day we might come to the kingdom that same Lord, out of love, gained for us.

 

....

 

Taken from: http://catholicpreaching.com/index.php?content=homilies&homilies=20040303