Nehemiah 8:2-6, 8-10 / 1 Cor 12:12-30 / Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21
Today we have come to church amidst some inconveniences of road closures and road diversions and changes in bus routes.
Whatever it is we have come here and later from here, we will be going somewhere else.
But wherever we may be going, at the end of the day, we will have to go back to where we started from – to a place called home.
Yes, there is no place like home, where we can be ourselves, wear what we like and do what we like. After all we are at home and it is there that we are truly ourselves.
And there is also no place like home, because that’s where the wi-fi connects automatically and easily. Indeed there is no place like home where the wi-fi is concerned.
In fact, there is no place like home where everything else is concerned. Home is where the day begins and home is where the day will end.
In the gospel, we heard that Jesus came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up.
He had left Nazareth and went down to the river Jordon and was baptized by John.
And with the power of the Spirit in Him, He went to Galilee and He taught in the synagogues.
And now He had come home, and in a way He was a different person.
Jesus had left home and now He had come back. And His homecoming is going to be where a new story begins.
And that new story began when He unrolled the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
Let us hear again what that new story, that new chapter of His life is all about:
“The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, and to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.”
Jesus came back to His hometown of Nazareth to begin a new story of His life, a story of love, hope and dreams.
And as He rolled up the scroll and as all the eyes in the synagogue were fixed on Him, He said to them: This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.
So the story of His life was not going to begin in time to come or somewhere in the future. It was going to begin there and then. It was to begin in that “today” even as they listened.
And throughout His life, as He proclaimed the story of the kingdom of God and of the Lord’s year of favour, His hometown will become associated with His name.
Because Jesus will be known as “Jesus of Nazareth”. And when the story of His life comes to an end, the notice that was nailed to the cross will also tell where the story began: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.
Today we have come to church. But we have not just come to another place. We have come home; we have come to the house of God called “Church of the Sacred Heart” or often in short “Sacred Heart Church”.
We are the parishioners of the Church of the Sacred Heart. When I go to other parishes, I will be known as Fr. Stephen Yim from the Church of the Sacred Heart.
Similarly when you go to other parishes for some church function, you will be known as a parishioner of the Church of the Sacred Heart, or you will introduce yourself as such.
So the Church of the Sacred Heart is our spiritual hometown. It is from this hometown that our spiritual story begins, a story of love, hope and dreams.
And for this year, we have a profound story to tell. This year is the Jubilee Year of Mercy and our church is one of the five pilgrimage churches in Singapore.
The Year of Mercy has already begun on the 8th December 2015 and almost two months have passed. So what are we doing about it?
As parishioners of this pilgrimage church, we are to be witnesses and heralds of God’s mercy. And people from other parishes want to know more about this.
We conducted a talk on the Year of Mercy a week ago and it was rather overwhelming. We expected to have 150 people but 270 people came and we ran short of material.
Yes, people are thirsting for the Good News and they want to experience God’s mercy. This is the Lord’s year of favour.
So we will have to conduct another talk on the Year of Mercy soon.
The Pope has led the Church to implore God’s mercy and God is pouring His mercy on His Church and so we cannot just let this year pass by without letting it have an impact on our lives.
The least we can do is to take a few of these Year of Mercy pamphlets and sharing it with others and to accompany them on a pilgrimage to our church and to experience God’s mercy and forgiveness and healing.
Home is where our story begins. For Jesus it was Nazareth. For us it will be the Church of the Sacred Heart.
May the story of God’s mercy and love and forgiveness begin here and today and may it come to an end at our eternal home in heaven.