Gospel (Mk 12:35-37)

And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself, inspired by the Holy Spirit, declared,

‘The Lord said to my Lord,
Sit at my right hand,
till I put thy enemies under thy feet.’

David himself calls him Lord; so how is he his son?”

And the great throng heard him gladly.

Commentary

Yesterday we saw Jesus’ response to a question about what the first commandment of God’s law is and how our Lord answered by quoting the well-known Shema Israel and combined it with the duty to love one’s neighbor.

Today’s Gospel passage presents a teaching of our Lord that helps us better grasp the mystery of his true identity.

Throughout the Gospel of Mark, Jesus has progressively revealed himself through how others respond to him. For example, when Saint Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah (cf. Mk 8:29), or when the blind man Bartimaeus calls him the merciful son of David (cf. Mk 10:47-48).

In today’s passage, Jesus teaches his disciples, although in a veiled way, that these titles attributed to him are correct, but still incomplete. It is true that our Lord is the Messiah, the long-awaited Son of David, the one sent by God, but above all he is the Son of God.

With his question about David’s words our Lord wants to guide them towards gasping his transcendence and help them realize that the Messiah was not to be merely a man, but someone with a divine nature. By making clear that David wrote the psalm that he quotes (cf. Ps 109), Jesus points to the messianic meaning of these words: “The Lord said to my Lord.” The second “Lord” is the Messiah, and Jesus implicitly identifies himself with him.

Thus the mysterious transcendence of the Messiah is expressed by the paradox that while being a son of David (that is, a descendant of David), yet David calls him his Lord, because not only is he the son of David, but above all he is the Son of God.