Rejoice greatly, Daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, Daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you: He is righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey…
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
ZECHARIAH 9:9-10
Rejoice greatly, Daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, Daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you: He is righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
He will cut off the chariots from Ephraim and the horses from Jerusalem; the battle bow will be removed, and He will proclaim peace to the nations. His dominion will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.
Zechariah appears to be a prophet who encourages and exhorts the people during the difficult period of the Temple’s reconstruction, after the exile, around 518 BC. In the second part of his book, from which today’s verses are taken, he pays close attention to divine action, in a time of scarce prophetic activity.
Today’s verses are an important messianic announcement. The image of the Davidic messiah is discarded and replaced by a peaceful and humble king, whom the Church has seen as a prefiguration of Jesus. This same text will be expressly used by the Gospel of Matthew, presenting Jesus as the non-Davidic Messiah in the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. (Mt. 21)
ROMANS 8:9-13
However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Today’s passage exhorts to a “life in the Spirit,” as opposed to “the flesh.” When Paul speaks of “the flesh,” he refers to something similar to “the world” in the Gospel and the letters of John. It is not about the physical body, matter, but about the subhuman tendencies, enemies of “the Spirit,” which is not the Platonic soul, but “the Spirit of God,” grace, the divine, humanizing and saving impulse.
Paul’s terminology (body, flesh, spirit, life, death…) is strongly symbolic, and we must not fall into the error of understanding them as they sound in our current cultural context.
José Enrique Galarreta, S.J.