Today’s readings focus on God’s way of working for His people through instruments like David in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament. However, there is much difference between the two: David went his own way and decided things according to his own will while Jesus did the Father’s will to fulfill one of His most important missions and it is to make the Father known through visible images. Let us review these images.

1. Carpenter- Jesus is illustrated as a carpenter. The word “carpenter” is tekton which means a “general builder” and not just plainly a worker pertaining to wood. This illustrates that God is a general builder. Later the wood of the Cross would be a sign of a builder of a world of salvation. God is the creator and great builder of the world. He shapes our life.

2. Prophet- The Gospel speaks of Jesus as not being accepted in his own native place. He was belittled because He was the carpenter’s son. A carpenter during the time of Jesus was an occupation even below the peasants’ line. It was a difficult way of life. It was simple, hardworking, and a low incomed livelihood. The difficulty Jesus, Joseph, and Mary went through provides the preceding image of a greater and greatest difficulty He would undergo. In the Old Testament, prophets did not live a comfortable life. They suffered in the name of God. They even meet death. Jesus likewise made the greatest ordeal of a prophet and it is death on the Cross. Being not accepted in his native place was a prelude to a greater unacceptance on the Cross for they shouted “crucify Him,” “crucify Him.”

3. Native Place- the mention by Jesus that “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house” illustrates the temporariness of His physical life on earth. This suppose to instill in our minds that our existence in the world is temporary and we have to yearn for the eternal life prepared for us.

4. Shepherd- In the first reading today, David had sinned against the Lord. As a king, he was tempted to number his own people. This angered the Lord because the people of Israel is the Lord’s and the Lord has the absolute and solemn right to number His people. David supposed to wait on the Lord if the latter desired to know the statistics and do the census. In Exodus 30:12, it is the Lord who commands the census and not the king for Israel is God’s people. “When you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, then every man shall give a ransom for himself to the LORD, when you number them, that there may be no plague among them when you number them.” Following this command of the Lord, David has no right to count his own people because God is the Divine Shepherd who has the right to count his own sheep. Israel is the God’s people and they do not belong to David. Who is the true Shepherd then? David said to God when the latter became angry and punished David and Israel: “It is I who have sinned; it is I, the shepherd, who have done wrong. But these are sheep; what have they done? Punish me and my kindred.”