Daily Mass Reflection (Nov 26, 2024)

Grapes of Wrath and New Wine

In the first reading we see the apocalyptic vision of God’s judgement, symbolized by the harvesting and pressing. While the powerful and vivid imagery is what catches our attention, pay attention to what exactly is being harvested and developed. The sickle is cutting the ripe grapes and pressing them to make wine. While the press is God’s fury, the result is not something we would consider bad. Jesus elsewhere compares the Gospel to new wine that would necessarily burst the old wine skins. This new wine came about through suffering on the Cross. The judgement of the old, while not necessary in the strict sense of the term but fitting, is what brings about the new. 

The Psalm similarly refers to judgment, but the heaven, the earth, the plains and the forests are joyful and glad. This judgement is a time of illumination and, though difficult, is ultimately a good. It brings about renewal, as the first reading has already alluded. It is after this that the Lord will rule with justice. 

While the Gospel reading hardly seems like a time of joy, much more so a time of foreboding, it too becomes an illuminating experience for Christians and Jews who were familiar with the Temple before its destruction by the Romans. This destruction, partially because it fulfilled a prophecy of Jesus, led to many Jewish people converting to Christianity. While difficult and painful, horrible even for those living in Jerusalem, it ultimately brought about an aspect of God’s plan, which was the proliferation of Christianity and the realization that the true Temple is found in Christ’s Body.

All humans have the temptation to turn good things, even the good things God gives, into idols. Just the bronze serpent had to eventually be destroyed and the Ark of the Covenant had to be hidden, so too must even the Temple have been destroyed because it became a distraction for God’s people from his Son, Jesus Christ. Let us not create our own man made temples that become distractions from the true Temple as well.