“For This Purpose Have I Come”

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, February 7, 2021

Today’s Gospel (Mk. 1:29-39) is a continuation of last Sunday’s Gospel (Mk. 1:21-28). After Jesus relocates to Capernaum, he enters the synagogue on a Sabbath day, assumes the role of a rabbi, teaches with authority, and delivers a man possessed with an evil spirit. Afterwards, “his fame spreads everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.” At the end of service in the synagogue, he goes to the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John to rest. After being told that Simon’s mother-in-law is sick with a fever, Jesus goes to her beside and heals her, and she in turn serves their needs of food and drink. By evening, all manner of persons—the sick, the demonic possessed were brought to him and he ministers to them. The next day, he wakes up very early in the morning and goes to a lonely place to pray. He is still praying when Simon and some people came to his “hideout” and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” Oh! how I wish everyone is looking for Jesus today, including all Christians. In response to Simon’s comment, Jesus presents a different schedule, “Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also.” Then he adds, “For this purpose have I come.” From there Jesus begins to go into their synagogues  preaching and driving out demons. 

From the onset of his public ministry, Jesus understood the reason why He came and severally spoke about it. In his response to Simon and others who disrupted his prayer time and wanted to take him back to Simon’s house where a host of people were waiting for him, he speaks about his purpose for coming into the world, which is, to preach the good news of the Kingdom of God. At his inauguration he declares “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind and to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord” (Lk. 4:18-19). In another occasion, Jesus says that the reason why he came is to call sinners to repentance (Mk. 2:17b). After his encounter with Zacchaeus, he says to him, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost” (Lk. 19:10). He also says …”the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk. 10:45). At his trial before Pilate, Jesus says to Pilate, “For this purpose I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (Jn. 18:37). Jesus understood his purpose on earth. He understood his mission. He knew the purpose of his coming is to be a Warrior against Satan, evil and death. He also knew the tools needed to wage this war and be successful. Jesus came to save humanity, to save you me. He was not confused or conflicted as to why he came. It was crystal clear to him. No wonder he is called the Triumphant Warrior. 

Sisters and brothers, what do you think is your purpose in life? Your purpose is not a sudden discovery that you are going to be a scientist or a doctor or a teacher, although it is a possibility. It is not a realization of what you are going to become; it is not one act or one career, but a profound realization that your entire life— private and public, inside self and outer life are altogether wired to God. In the first reading (Job 7:1-4, 6-7), Job paints a very sad, negative and pessimistic view of life. He describes life on earth as “a drudgery,” that is, a hard, dry menial, donkey work with no fun. He compares days on earth like those hirelings (poorly paid workers who work purely for material reward). As deeply sad and pessimistic those words are, they are basically true for those who live without purpose, whose purpose of life is not ordered towards God. From the standpoint of Christianity, our purpose in life is to join the company of those referred by Simon when he says to Jesus, “Everyone is looking for you.” If you are retired or working, if you are a nurse, a doctor, a clerk, a police officer, a priest, a politician, a janitor, a professor, a homemaker, a receptionist, or a bookkeeper etc look for Jesus while doing what you do. Reject the secularist ideology which says you can be perfectly happy with the goods of the world without God. This ideology does great violence to the human heart because as St. Augustine says our heart is wired to God, our heart is restless until it rests in God. We are ordered by innate natural desires towards ultimate truth, ultimate goodness, ultimate beauty, which is God. To finally realize this fact and live everyday looking for Jesus in everything we do is our very purpose in life.