PARADOXICAL SUN - C: 33rd Sun in OrdTime

First Reading: Malachi 3:19-20 (November 13, 2022)

“But for you who fear my name, the sun of justice will arise with healing in its wings” (Mal 3:20a).

The sun has two basic functions that are paradoxical to each other, viz., to burn and to shine. The image of the sun with these dual functions is accentuated in our first reading today. Accordingly, on the one hand, it can cause something or someone to burn. This is emphasized by the prophet Malachi when he said, “For the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evil-doers will be stubble. And on that day that is coming will set them on fire, leaving them neither root nor branch, says the Lord of hosts” (v. 19). These arrogant people are those who question God, complaining, “It is useless to serve God; what do we gain by observing God’s requirements, and by going about as mourners before the Lord of hosts?” (v. 14). They test God themselves but, ironically, successfully escape from the protest they make (v. 15).

In the eyes of God, those who notoriously challenge God’s ways and divine will deserve to be scorched by fire one day since their deed is deemed as intrinsically evil before God.

On the other hand, the sun can provide real healing, especially to those who are lacking of solar energy. This portrait of the sun is elaborated in the prophet’s expression “the sun of justice will arise with healing in its wings” (3:20a). The alternate English translation of the term “wings” (cf. King James Version, New Revised Standard Bible, etc.) is “rays” as attested in the New Catholic Bible. The expression “wings” here—according to the apparatus of the New American Bible—may serves as “a common symbol of the manifestation of a god in the ancient Near East is the winged disk found, for example, on premonarchic jar handles.” This depiction of celestial figures as winged creatures only proves that the “rays of the sun” may allegorically refer to God’s overarching dispensation of graces, blessings, and healing to those who “fear the Lord and esteem his ways” (v. 16).

As a result of their respectful actions, God exceptionally “will have compassion on them, as a man has compassion on his son who serves him” (v. 17).

In a nutshell, what Malachi communicates here is that, whereas the humble and submissive individuals are always pleasing to God, the arrogant and complaining ones will be conversely punished by being burned under the heat of the so-called sun of righteousness. This paradoxical image of the sun implies that one premier value in human living is “the fear of the Lord” since its very observance produces people with a deep sense of sin, righteousness, charity, and understanding. This virtue, most importantly, softens the heart of the boastful, making him/her realize that God still is his/her creator as well as the creator of everything that exists on earth.

The sun, when used as an image, serves as a double-edged sword (cf. Heb 4:12) that can be an instrument of both punishment and grace. By analogy to our contemporary period, the words delivered by honest journalists, fair political analysts, conscientious religious preachers, and sincere societal observers can function in two ways. They can be used to implicate their users to be guilty of rash judgments, unfounded accusations, or biased propaganda to destabilize peace and order. Conversely, they can be viewed as part of the evangelization and emancipation of the abandoned and marginalized sectors of our society.

For this reason, the truth should be declared bravely at all costs, even if it entails being martyred by the very sword used in turn.

- Rex Fortes, CM