Episode 65: Year B – 1st Sunday of Lent
In this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word, we focus on several details found in the second reading and Gospel reading that are relevant to doing apologetics. The first two come from the second reading, which is taken from 1 Peter 3:18-22. The relevant apologetical topics are the Sacrifice of the Mass, Purgatory, and the Sacrament of Baptism. The last three details are found in the Gospel reading, which is taken from Mark 1:12-15, and the relevant topic is Jesus’ Messiahship.
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Hey everyone,
Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.
I’m Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.
In this episode, we’re going to focus on several details found in the second reading and Gospel reading that are relevant to doing apologetics. The first two come from the second reading, which is taken from 1 Peter 3:18-22. The relevant apologetical topics are the Sacrifice of the Mass, Purgatory, and the Sacrament of Baptism. The last three details are found in the Gospel reading, which is taken from Mark 1:12-15, and the relevant topic is Jesus’ Messiahship.
Let’s start with the second reading, 1 Peter 3:18-22:
Christ suffered for sins once,
the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous,
that he might lead you to God.
Put to death in the flesh,
he was brought to life in the Spirit.
In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison,
who had once been disobedient
while God patiently waited in the days of Noah
during the building of the ark,
in which a few persons, eight in all,
were saved through water.
This prefigured baptism, which saves you now.
It is not a removal of dirt from the body
but an appeal to God for a clear conscience,
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
who has gone into heaven
and is at the right hand of God,
with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.
The first detail is Peter’s statement, “Christ suffered for sins once.” This echoes the author of Hebrews, who writes in 7:27, “He [ Jesus] has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people; he did this once for all when he offered up himself.”
Protestants will often appeal to these passages to show the Catholic Church’s teaching that the Mass is Christ’s sacrifice contradicts the Bible. If Christ offered himself “once for all,” so the argument goes, and the Catholic Church says that Christ continues to offer himself in the Eucharist (CCC 1367), it would seem the Catholic Church is teaching something contrary to the Bible.
I deal with this objection in my book Meeting the Protestant Challenge: How to Answer 50 Biblical Objections to Catholic Beliefs. I’ll share a few of the responses here that I give in the book.
First, consider that both Peter and the author of Hebrews emphasize that Christ suffered for sins once. Their purpose for this was to contrast Jesus’ sacrifice for sins with the sacrifices that the Jewish priests had to offer on a daily basis. They both are making the point that Jesus doesn’t have to offer regular animal sacrifices because his one sacrifice was sufficient to forgive the sins of all people throughout all time.
Now, the Catholic doctrine of the eucharistic sacrifice would contradict this biblical teaching if it entailed a re-crucifixion of Jesus. But that’s not the case. The eucharistic sacrifice is not another sacrifice of Christ, as if Christ were repeatedly shedding his blood and dying. His bloody offering on the cross was a one-time event in the past and is never to be repeated. The offering in the eucharistic celebration re-presents—without blood, without making Jesus suffer and die anew—that one historical sacrifice. The Catechism explains:
The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different” (1367, citing the Council of Trent).
Inasmuch as the Church’s doctrine of the eucharistic sacrifice affirms that Christ died once on the cross and that he does not and cannot die again, it in no way violates the single nature of Christ’s sacrifice as taught by both Peter and the author of Hebrews.
A second response is that the Bible itself reveals that Christ continues to offer his sacrifice to the Father in an unbloody manner.
This challenge assumes that after Christ’s bloody offering on the cross, nothing remains of his sacrificial ministry. But the Bible disproves that assumption.
The letter to the Hebrews tells us that Christ “holds his priesthood permanently” (7:24) and is our high priest “in the sanctuary and the true tent, which is set up not by man but by the Lord” (8:2). And since he “always lives to make intercession” (7:25) for us as our high priest, he is “able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him.” For the author of Hebrews, Christ’s sacrifice is the basis for our salvation. So the ongoing intercession that Christ makes in the heavenly sanctuary must be on account of his death on the cross.
But Christ can’t be repeatedly dying in the heavenly sanctuary, for that is the thing that the author of Hebrews is denying when he speaks of Christ offering himself “once for all” (see also Heb. 9:24-25). Christ’s heavenly intercession, therefore, must consist of re-presenting to the Father his single sacrifice on the cross as a memorial offering and asking the Father to save those who draw near to him on account of that sacrifice. This makes sense out of what the author of Hebrews says in 8:3: “For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.”
If Jesus can re-present his one sacrifice to the Father in an unbloody manner for an eternity in heaven and not take away from his once-for-all bloody offering on the cross, then the eucharistic sacrifice can do the same on earth. It is the temporal and visible outworking of Christ’s mystical re-presentation of his one sacrifice in the heavenly sanctuary. It’s a moment when heaven and earth are united, the earthly liturgy making present in time and space the heavenly liturgy.
Another passage that suggests an ongoing aspect of Christ’s sacrificial ministry in the heavenly sanctuary is Hebrews 9:23, which reads, “Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.”
The author implies that there are sacrifices taking place in the heavenly sanctuary—and that Christ is offering them, for in the next verse he speaks of Christ’s heavenly intercession: “For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf ” (v.24). This at least suggests that there is an ongoing aspect to Christ’s sacrificial ministry. But what does he mean by “sacrifices” plural?
We know for sure that he doesn’t mean that Christ repeatedly offers himself like he did on the cross. For he writes, “Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the Holy Place yearly with blood not his own; for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world.” (v.25-26). In saying that Jesus does not have to “suffer repeatedly,” he has Christ’s earthly, bloody sacrifice in mind.
How could Christ offer multiple sacrifices in heaven without suffering and without undermining the sufficiency of his death on the cross? By re-presenting his single sacrifice to the Father in an unbloody manner. It’s the same sacrifice in that it’s the same priest and the same victim but a different sacrifice in that it’s offered in a different manner with different acts of intercession. This would explain how there are “sacrifices” (plural) offered in the heavenly temple. This ongoing dimension of Christ’s sacrifice in heaven, taught by Scripture, shows that the “once for all” challenge doesn’t prove the Catholic belief wrong.
I think these two responses suffice for our purposes here. But, again, if you’re interested in learning more about how to respond to this sort of objection, get my book Meeting the Protestant Challenge.
The second detail in this second reading that comes into play for apologetical discussions is Peter’s use of the Greek word phulake, which is translated “prison” in the statement, “Jesus went to preach to the spirits in prison.” Peter here is speaking of that postmortem dwelling place in which the Old Testament righteous souls dwelt before Jesus’ ascension.
This is relevant because Matthew uses the same word, phulake, in 5:26 when narrating Jesus’ teaching about one being thrown into “prison” and not getting out until he pays “the last penny.”
As I argue in my book Purgatory is For Real, Peter’s use of phulake as a temporary postmortem holding place in 1 Peter 3:19 gives us grounds to that it’s being used similarly here in Matthew 5:26. And if Jesus is speaking about a temporary postmortem holding place where someone is paying off debt for past wrongdoings, then he’s speaking about purgatory, since hell is not temporary and there is no paying of debts in heaven.
Let’s now turn to the third detail in the second reading that’s relevant for apologetics, and that’s Peter’s statement about the floods saving Noah and his family and it being a symbol of baptism. He writes,
God patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water. This prefigured baptism, which saves you now. It is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Notice Peter says baptism saves us. And he makes clear the nature of this “salvation.” It is not an external cleansing of removing dirt from the body. Rather, it’s an internal cleansing which brings about a clear conscience before God, which can mean only one thing: we are set free from the guilt of sin through the waters of baptism. In other words, we’re saved through the waters of baptism. And that’s exactly what Peter says.
Now, Protestants have several comebacks to this line of interpretation. For those comebacks, and how to answer them, you can read the relevant chapter in my book Meeting the Protestant Response: How to Answer Common Comebacks to Catholic Arguments.
The last three details that we’re going to focus on come from the Gospel reading, which, again, is taken from Mark 1:12-15. Here’s what we read:
The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert,
and he remained in the desert for forty days,
tempted by Satan.
He was among wild beasts,
and the angels ministered to him.
After John had been arrested,
Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God:
“This is the time of fulfillment.
The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
I would submit that the main apologetical topic here is Jesus’ Messiahship. There are three clues, or details, that Mark highlights that would seem to suggest this.
First, Mark combines two images in this passage: “wild beasts” and the “desert,” which can also be translated as “wilderness.” What Mark is trying to do here comes to light when we read Ezekiel 34:25, where God says, “I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild beasts from the land, so that they may dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods.”
Given this prophetical backdrop, where the images of wild beasts and the wilderness are combined with the prophecy of God making a covenant of peace with his people, it’s reasonable to conclude that Mark is proclaiming Christ to be the Messiah ushering in the Messianic age.
Second, the mention of “wild beasts” by itself calls to mind Isaiah’s prophecy about the Messiah in Isaiah 11:1, 6-9. Isaiah prophesies,
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. 2 And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him… 6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall feed; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. 9 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain.
For Isaiah, when the Messiah comes, who will be a descendent of Jesse, and in particular a descendent of David, son of Jesse, the wild beasts will be tamed.
Now, Mark mentions Jesus is among “wild beasts.” Why would he mention that? The implication is that the wild beasts aren’t attacking him, which further implies they’re tame around him. What’s the significance? Mark is signaling for his readers that Jesus is the prophesied “shoot from the stump of Jesse.” He is the Messiah.
The last detail that supports Jesus’ Messiahship is his proclamation that “the kingdom of God is at hand.” There are many Old Testament prophecies that speak of the reestablishment of David’s kingdom, but Ezekiel 37:24-28 is one that’s worth noting. It reads,
24 My servant David shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow my ordinances and be careful to observe my statutes. 25 They shall dwell in the land where your fathers dwelt that I gave to my servant Jacob; they and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there for ever; and David my servant shall be their prince for ever. 26 I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. 27 My dwelling place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 28 Then the nations will know that I the LORD sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is in the midst of them for evermore.
Notice the one prophesied about here is “my servant David,” which means a son of David. Also, notice the everlasting nature of the kingdom that he will establish. Moreover, this son of David will establish a covenant peace, a theme Ezekiel emphasized three chapters earlier in 34:25.
Now, Mark records Jesus, son of David, proclaiming the presence of this kingdom within the context of other details that call to mind more prophecies about the same Messianic age. The only conclusion here is that Mark is offering an apology, or a defense, of Jesus’ Messiahship.
CONCLUSION
So, the second reading and the Gospel reading for this upcoming First Sunday of Lent, Year B gives us ample opportunity to focus on some apologetical topics. We have
- the Sacrifice of the Mass as the re-presentation of the single sacrifice of Christ,
- Purgatory,
- the saving efficacy of the sacrament of baptism, and
- Jesus’ Messiahship.
All these topics are worth dwelling on.
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I hope you have a blessed 1st Sunday of Lent, Year B. Peace!