3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - C 2025

Seventy long and bitter years.  Nearly a lifetime had passed since that dark chapter began.  The majestic city of Jerusalem, beloved and holy, had been besieged and overrun by the relentless forces of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon.  The once-proud city groaned under the weight of suffering.  Starvation and despair stalked its streets.  Its people, broken and beleaguered, were dragged away into captivity like sheep without a shepherd.

Gone was the splendor of their promised land, the inheritance sworn to their fathers.  Their beloved city lay in ruins, reduced to jagged heaps of stone and ash.  The Temple, the house of the Living God, the crown jewel of their faith, was gone—razed to the ground, its glory extinguished in smoke and flame.  The Israelites, once free under the hand of their God, now bowed under the yoke of a foreign power, exiles in a strange land.

For seventy years, the exiled people of God lived in this foreign land, their hearts heavy with sorrow.  Songs of Zion, their Psalms, once sung with joy, became bitter laments.  By the Rivers of Babylon they hung their harps on the poplars, too grieved to sing.  Questions of identity gnawed at them: Who are we now?  What remains of us as a people?  The sacred laws and customs that had distinguished them as a people seemed like distant shadows as they faded into hazy memory.

But then, like the dawn after a long, dark night, word came: They were free to go home.  It seemed impossible—a dream too good to be true.  Cyrus, the great Persian king, had decreed it.  God had moved the heart of a pagan ruler to show favor to His chosen people.  The exiles, once prisoners of Babylon, were now released to return to the land of their fathers.

For many, it was the fulfillment of a hope long deferred.  Yet for others, it was bittersweet.  Decades had passed.  For many, exile was all they had ever known.  Most who left Jerusalem did not live to see this day.  Those who remembered the city in its glory were now frail and bent with age.  As they journeyed homeward, their hearts reeled with a confused mixture of joy and sorrow.  Some recalled the laughter of their youth in the bustling streets of Jerusalem.  Others remembered standing in awe before the Temple, its golden splendor shining like the sun.  But those memories, once vivid, had grown faint, like fading dreams.

At last, they arrived.  The sight before them was almost too much to bear.  The city lay decimated, its walls breached, its gates burnt, its Temple a heap of rubble.  Tears flowed freely—tears of sorrow for what was lost, tears of gratitude for the hope that remained.  They wept not only for what had been, but also for what could yet be.  The God of their fathers had brought them back.  His promises had not failed.

As the Israelites stood among the ruins, a quiet resolve began to take root.  Their city could rise again.  Their Temple could be rebuilt.  Their covenant with God could be renewed.  The journey back was not merely a return to a place.  It was a return to their God, the One who had never abandoned them, even in exile.

It was in this poignant moment, amidst the ruins and the rising hope, that Ezra the priest stood before the people up on a wooden platform.  His voice, steady and solemn, carried the words of their Scriptures over the gathered assembly.  The ancient laws—the commandments that had shaped their identity as God’s chosen people—were read aloud, each word a reminder of who they were and whose they were.

And once again, Israel wept.  Tears flowed as they listened.  They wept for the beauty of the laws they had forgotten, laws once etched in their hearts and lives, now seeming new and wondrous once more.  They wept for the realization of how far they had strayed, how their rejection of the One True God had led to their downfall.  Their hearts, hardened by exile, softened under the weight of the truth.  But these were not tears of despair.  They were tears of repentance, mingled with the hope of renewal.

Ezra, seeing their sorrow, urged them to lift their heads and dry their tears.  “Do not be sad and do not weep,” he declared.  “Today is holy to the Lord your God.  Rejoice!  Celebrate!”  God had not abandoned them.  He had rescued them from their captivity, brought them back from exile, and renewed His covenant of love with them.  This was a moment of thanksgiving, not lamentation.  God, their rescuer and savior, had proven faithful once again.  Never again, Ezra exhorted, should they turn away.  Never again should they forget the One who had redeemed them.  Never again should they forget who they were and whose they were.

In many ways, this story of Israel’s exile and return mirrors the journey of every human heart.  We, too, were created by love and for love, destined to live in communion with God.  And yet, like Israel enticed by false gods, we are drawn away by the glittering enticements of sin.  We long for happiness, for fulfillment.  Our fault lies not in the longing itself, but in seeking satisfaction in false ways, seeking happiness apart from God.

And in our wandering, we forget why we were made.  Like the Israelites in captivity, we lose sight of where we came from and where we are meant to go.  We forget who we are and whose we are.  We are held captive—not by foreign political powers, but by a thousand vices and addictions, both great and small.  Our hearts are bound by the chains of pride, greed, envy, lust, and despair.  In our haze, we skate through life, unaware of the depth of our bondage, forgetful of why we were made.  How frequently do we ponder the truth that we are not made for this world?  How frequently do we reflect on the fact that our true home lies beyond this world and this life?  We grow comfortable with our exile and captivity.  We forget our identity as beloved sons and daughters of God.  We forget the grandeur of our origin and the glory of our destiny.

But this is why Jesus came.  This is the reason for His proclamation in today’s Gospel: He has come to set captives free.  He has come to break the chains that bind us, to open our eyes to the truth of who He is—and, in knowing Him, to rediscover who we are: Beloved sons and daughters of God.  He calls us out of exile, to freedom from those sins that hold us captive.  This life is given to us as a time of journeying towards the new Jerusalem, Heaven, just as the Israelites returned to the old Jerusalem.  And if we should wander off the path, our Lord always beckons us back through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  There is no limit to His mercy.

Like the Israelites listening to Ezra, let’s never forget where we came from and where we are meant to go.  Never forget how God has offered us redemption through His Son.  He is our rescuer, our savior.  In Him alone will we find our true freedom and our eternal joy.