Today’s readings show us what it is like to be a prophet. As Jeremiah recounts his call, God warns him that he will need strength and perseverance to withstand the hostility he will face from “Judah’s kings and princes” and “its priests and people” (Jeremiah 1:18b). God also assures him that they “will not prevail over you, for I am with you” (1:19). The psalm reflects both of these struggles as well as deliverance from them (“salvation”).

Scripture has always held God’s law to be the path to human happiness. In today’s first reading, Ezra the priest reads the scroll of the law to the people returned from exile. They weep—then are joyful. Israel’s relationship with God had always been defined by how they kept and lived God’s law. The author of Psalm 96 likewise praises the law of God as the source of wisdom, joy and enlightenment, purity and justice.

Today’s first reading from Isaiah arises out of the ordeal of the people of Jerusalem and Judea as they anticipate the end of seventy years of exile in Babylon. Their sufferings and their oppression will end, and they are promised joy like that of a great wedding upon returning to their homeland.

As we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, we also honor our own baptism as our initiation into the Christian life and community. In the Gospel, the baptism of Jesus, with his immersion and then emergence from the water, points to his later submission to God at his death, and his emergence from the grave at his resurrection.

In our celebration of the Epiphany, two interwoven themes are present in the readings today. God is beginning something new, and God gathers all of humanity to participate. For Isaiah, God’s bright light, manifested in the people of Israel, attracts and summons people from many nations to Jerusalem. In the letter to the Ephesians, God’s grace makes the Gentiles co-heirs and co-partners in the gospel. Matthew tells the story of the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel through the birth of Jesus, and simultaneously leading foreigners to share in these same promises. With the birth of Jesus, God chose a particular people, in a particular time and place, to enter most directly into the human story. Today’s readings teach that God did this in order to gather all people, all cultures, into unity with God. Like the magi, we are drawn into a journey toward God, becoming co-partners in God’s work.

Christmas celebrates the Incarnation, the “enflesh-ment” of God as a human person. In Jesus, God is bodily present in the human story. Today we honor the Holy Family, helping us to see that God is active in daily family life. God is near at hand, amidst the tensions, joys, and uncertainties of family life.

There is a spirit of audacity in our readings today. During a time of injustice and threat of invasion, the prophet Micah boldly announces that the God of insignificant Israel will raise up a leader from backwater Bethlehem, and this leader will bring justice and peace to the whole world.

The prophetic writings we hear in today’s scriptures call us to rejoice and celebrate the goodness ofGod. Zephaniah, Isaiah, Saint Paul, and John theBaptist in Luke’s Gospel all follow the rich tradition of the Biblical prophets, a tradition that reachesfull expression in Jesus. The prophets warn that human failings have truly disastrous consequences.

When John proclaimed a baptism of repentance, as today’s Gospel relates, he called people to a deep change of heart. For John the Baptist, repentance was not simply regret for past failings, but a commitment to orient life around God’s desires and purposes.

We the Church enter into Advent and the new liturgical year with a call for a watchful confidence. Our readings were originally addressed to communities undergoing great loss and confusion. Jeremiah speaks confidently of God fulfilling the ancient promises to Israel, even during a time of foreign invasion. Paul speaks of God leading the Church into holiness, while the community longs for the coming of Jesus.

The selection from the book of Daniel presented in today’s first reading was part of an attempt to weave a vision of ultimate success for the Jews under persecution. Exactly whom the author had in mind when he refers to “one like a Son of Man” is hotly disputed by scholars today.

By pointing to the end times, today’s readings speak to the coming reign of God, when God will make all things new. In Christ, this time has already begun. We, by our energized watchfulness, can further God’s reign. We can heal broken hearts, free captives, spread the Good News. Even so, the reign of God will not be complete without the second coming of Christ.

As Christians, we hear a lot about the witness and service that we are called to render to the poor among us. However, the poor also have a witness and a service to render to us. Like the actions of the widow in today’s Gospel, the openness and generosity of many of those who are poor, even in the midst of their own poverty, bear witness to the fact that, ultimately, we can depend only on God. Giving one’s all witnesses that God will give all to anyone who trusts in divine goodness.