December 17
O Wisdom of our God Most High, guiding creation with power and love, come to teach us the path of knowledge!
Wisdom –
God’s Wisdom guides creation, as such we can see order and design everywhere we look!
Look at the intricate details of a butterfly – not only appearance but also their instincts as well as the fact that they strangely start out as a caterpillar for some reason and then go through a magnificent transformation!
And far beyond that, look at the complexity of the human person! We are composed of tiny cells that are mini-machines that are programmed to grow, respond to changes in the environment and reproduce. Some of these tiny cells specialize to compose of muscle that allows us to eat, walk, run and breathe. Some of the cells specialize to form cells that act like soldiers fighting off various invaders (bacteria, virus, parasites, etc). Our eyes alone are incredibly sophisticated, our brain is incredibly intricate and not fully understood, and even the smartest physicians and medical researchers are baffled by various things related to the human body. In the order, complexity and design of our human body, God’s Wisdom is on display!
God’s Wisdom is also magnificently shown in His Providence. This is God’s loving care for all humanity and His plan to help lead us to Him. We can see evidence of God’s Providence throughout history. The Old Testament gives us many examples showing us that even when Israel would disobey or go astray, even when they thought all was lost, God never abandoned them. At times, God would discipline them for their disobedience and allow them to suffer the consequences of their wickedness, always with the hope that this would lead the people to repentance. But other times, God helped Israel achieve victory in battles, blessed them with fertile lands and sent them prophets as messengers from God with the hope of encouraging the people to remain faithful or to repent and turn to God.
The prophets are especially fascinating because hundreds of prophecies are found in the Old Testament, having been given to Israel by God hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus Christ. Through these prophecies, God showed that He had neither abandoned Israel nor humanity reminding Israel that the promised Messiah who would usher in a new covenant, would establish an everlasting kingdom and would rule all nations forever was yet to come. These prophecies prepared Israel for the Messiah so that they would recognize Him when He came and because only in the one true Messiah would these prophecies find their fulfillment. Then, in the fullness of time, in the early 1st century, God kept His promise. With the birth, life, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, these prophecies about the coming of the Messiah were fulfilled.
In these prophecies, the grandeur of the Wisdom of God is evident. Here are a few examples of these prophecies related to Jesus the Messiah (and there are hundreds more):
“But you Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times” (Micah 5:2). [Fulfillment: Matt 2:1]
“The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his” (Gen 49:10). [Fulfillment: Lk 3:23-34; Matt 1:1-16]
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zech 9:9). [Fulfillment: Lk 19:35-37]
“Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me” (Ps 41:9). [Fulfillment: Mk 14:18-21]
“He was smitten and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” (Is 53:7). [Fulfillment: Matt 27:12-14]
“I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard. I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting” (Is 50:6). [Fulfillment: Matt 26:67-68]
“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Is 53:5). [Fulfillment: Jn 20:25]
“O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave, restored me to life from among those to the pit” (Ps 30:3). [Fulfillment: Lk 24:45-46]
The last Old Testament prophecy I will share blows me away every time I read it because of how accurate it was in foretelling what would happen with Jesus:
“Let us oppress the righteous poor man; let us not spare the widow nor regard the gray hairs of the aged. But let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless. ‘Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected.’ Thus, they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them, and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hope for the wages of holiness, nor discern the prize for blameless souls…” (Wisdom 2:10-21). [Note that the book of Wisdom is only found in complete Bibles with all 73 books]
In reflecting on these prophecies above that are fulfilled in Christ and meditating on this antiphon “O Wisdom”, all I can do is echo St. Paul:
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Rom 11:33)