Faith

To raise and restore – Tuesday of Holy Week – Isaiah 49:1-6/John 13:21-33,36-38

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/deserters-betrayers-deniers-all-the-kings-men/ based on the Gospel of today.

Chapters 42-53 of the book of Isaiah contain four Servant Songs. The first of these songs (42:1-4) that we read at mass yesterday, tells of the call of the Servant to “bring justice to the nations” (42:1). Today we read the second Song of the Servant of Yahweh. This song of the servant (49:1-6), further defines the Servant’s mission. The Servant is “to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the people of Israel” (49:6a). Furthermore, God says, “I will also give you for a light to the nations, that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth” (49:6b). The prophet speaks in words that apply very suitably to Jesus. In Christian tradition we have come to apply these words to Jesus, the servant who suffered for us. Jesus has been called from all eternity to do this work of salvation. He is a “sharp-edged sword” and a “polished arrow”.

What can we draw this Holy Week from this text? It was God the father who called Jesus his son to mission; a mission of servant leadership. There is clarity of mission and purpose in this call. Jesus is called and given the tools necessary for our salvation. He is the sharp sword. The words of Jesus have power that can cut through the heart of any sinner. He is the polished arrow hidden in the Father’s quiver to be used at the appropriate time. (My hour has not yet come)

Yet there must have been times when the heart of our saviour reflected the words of the Prophet Isaiah, “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity.” The death of Jesus on the cross may have seemed so futile. He lived for others, he died for others but this life and death seemed to have no effect on Caiaphas, on Pilate, on Judas, on the Sanhedrin, on those who cried crucify him, on those who spat at him and mocked him, on the bad thief, on the Romans and the list goes on.

YET his death was not in vain. Jesus came to bring back ‘Jacob’ and ‘Israel’. John 1:12 tells us that to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God. The Holy Week is a time when we stand with Jacob and Israel, a time for restoration a time for redemption.

The text of today also focuses on another human reality. There is a tendency to give up when faced with constant attack in the face of good. Christ too faced this animosity all the while. The ones who attacked him were the religious leaders of his time, the big guns of the Jewish nation and not some small time Jewish columnist writing in the Jerusalem Post. So, one understands when on wishes to give up when the heart and soul of a person is attacked for doing good.

Christ came to call us to share in his humanity and divinity. We have to fight our human nature that sucks us into failure, into sin, into defeat. We have to push ourselves like Jesus to work for his kingdom. The reward for the labourer is not a holiday in Tahiti but rather the reward for the labourer is more work. (Matthew 13:12).

When our human frailty causes us to feel discouraged by the negativity that surrounds us, assure yourself that you are “called by God before you were born and named in your mother’s” womb by God himself to be his servant; words from today’s reading. This is not some frivolous task that God has handed to you but indeed a holy mandate to “raise and restore”

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Faith

Make me a servant – Monday of the Holy Week – Isaiah 42:1-7/ John 12:1-11

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/there-is-something-about-marymary-of-bethany/ based on the Gospel of today.

Today we have the first of the four Songs of the Servant of Yahweh taken from the prophet Isaiah. Together, they describe the finest qualities of Israel and her great leaders. Today’s song, describes a ‘chosen one’ like Moses, David, and all Israel. As the Servant, he fulfils the role of Davidic king and prophet. Christians have typically seen ‘the servant’ as associated with Jesus; his life and ministry, but especially his death and resurrection.

In order to understand this text, we need to look at what has happened so far. God delivered his people from bondage in Egypt, made a covenant with them, and brought them to the promised land. They became a nation and built a temple for the Lord. For centuries they saw military victories and defeats under kings and generals. They strayed from God’s covenant but prophets called them back. Then, in the sixth century BCE, the unthinkable happened. The Babylonians defeated Israel.

The kingdom of Judah finds itself in exile with the temple in ruins and kingship at an end. Zion in all its splendour has been diminished, and some of the Judahites are forced exiles in the foreign land of Babylonia. The Babylonians destroyed the temple, plundered Israel’s treasure and livelihoods, took them into bondage, and marched them back to the gates of Babylon in chains, prompting “By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion” (Psalm 137:1). The Babylonian victory over Israel was absolute. This was utter, complete devastation of the political, social, economic and religious life God’s people had known for centuries. Without a temple and a Davidic leader, the future of the people was in great peril. They need assurance, assistance, and a new vision.

How could the Mighty Deliverer allow this to happen? Had God abandoned them? Why had he removed access to the temple and to the land he had given them? Were they still God’s people? Was God still God? Now that they were in exile they could only conclude that God had withdrawn favour and allowed the Babylonians to punish them for their sins and disobedience.

Into this difficult political and religious situation, the prophet introduces a servant figure. God speaks to the pain of the exiles and promises to send a servant who will bring justice, and not to Israel only but to all nations. God will place His spirit upon this servant so that the servant is able to bring forth justice to the nations, to be a light, to open blind eyes and bring out prisoners. The prophet reminds the people who God is and how God works. He draws their attention from this particular, historical moment, to the larger purposes of God.

For us Christians, Jesus is the Messiah who has inaugurated the New Covenant by his suffering and death. We will see that more clearly when we read more of the Suffering Servant during Holy Week.

As we begin Holy Week, we are reminded that this work of God’s servant, which we also are, has to go on through us. We are not here this week just to be spectators, even grateful spectators. We are to be part of the work which the Paschal Mystery inaugurated. We, too, are to be servants, ready, if necessary, to suffer as Jesus did for the sake of our brothers and sisters. 

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Faith

A revelation and an expectation – Thursday, 5th Week of Lent – Genesis 17:3-9/ John 8:51-59

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/i-am-2/ on the Gospel of today.

Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran (Genesis 12:4). He was 86 years old when the son Ishmael was born of Hagar, the servant girl (Genesis 16:15-16). He had waited some 25 years for the fulfilment of God’s promise to give a son through Sarai. It had been some 13 years since his last recorded word from God. That is a lot of trusting and a lot of patience. It is no wonder that ‘Abraham’ is called the father of faith.

Abram’s story began with his call. When God called Abram to leave his father’s house and go to a land that God would show him (12:1), God promised, “I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. All of the families of the earth will be blessed in you” (12:2-3). The covenant in chapter 17, from which our first reading is taken, expands on that promise that God made earlier.

In chapter 17 God tells Abram what was expected of him. It was first revelation and then expectation. God reveals himself as El Shaddai (God Almighty). He then states his expectation, that Abram ‘walk before him’ and is blameless. The word blameless literally means “whole.” God wanted all of Abram, a total commitment.

God also reminded Abram that he had not forgotten the covenant he made with him. Though it had been some 25 years since the promise was first made, and though it may have seemed to Abram that God had forgotten his covenant, God didn’t forget anything. Abram was becoming a great man of faith, but you don’t make a great man of faith overnight. It takes years of God’s work in them, years of almost mundane trusting in God, perhaps interrupted with a few spectacular encounters with God.

Ironically, while God had made a covenant with Abram, his very name seemed like a cruel joke. Ab means “father.” Abram means ‘father of many’ and yet this was a hard name to bear for a man who was the father of none. So when God renews his covenant with Abram he changes his name to Abraham which means father of many nations; ‘ab-hamon’. It was almost crazy for a childless man to have such a name. We need to remember that, for the ancients, a name did not merely indicate a person or thing, rather it made a thing what it was, and a change of name meant a change of destiny. But God clearly had a promise for Abraham and Gods delays are not his denials.

In almost every dimension, God made the long-delayed promise to Abraham greater. Never before had God specifically said that multiple nations would come from Abraham (a singular nation was promised in Genesis 12:2). Never before had God specifically said that kings would descend from Abraham.

Abraham and his descendants are called to ratify this covenant, and on their part, they are to keep the covenant by their total allegiance to their one and only God. Abraham, as the Gospel indicates, is regarded as the father of all God’s people. As Matthew’s genealogy indicates, he is the ancestor of Jesus and in Jesus we find the complete fulfilment of the promises made long ago. We read in today’s Gospel, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to think that he would see my Day; he saw it and was glad.”

The covenant made between Abraham and God is both sealed and renewed in Jesus Christ. And through Jesus, people everywhere become, in a special way, children of God. Let us rejoice in having God as our Father and Jesus as our brother. We do so by the way we live our lives.

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A God who comes through for us – Wednesday, 5th week of Lent – Daniel 3:14-20, 91-92, 95/ John 8:31-42

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/catching-the-bull-by-its-tail-2/ based on the Gospel of today.

The text of today tells us that the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, erected a massive golden statue and commanded that all must bow before it. Why Nebuchadnezzar set up the golden images is not explicitly stated but by doing this has places himself beyond God. This directly challenges the faithfulness of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the exiles who are now governors in this Chaldean land and because of the King’s decree to worship the statue, are threatened with death.

At the end the previous chapter, Nebuchadnezzar had announced that true knowledge and true power comes from Daniel’s God. But at the beginning of Daniel 3, the king seems to have forgotten his earlier confession, and, at the prodding of some Babylonian sages (the Chaldeans), he entraps the Jewish friends and arrogantly dismisses their God. Some scholars argue that the time lapse between chapters two and three could have been several years but whatever be the case, the reality of human arrogance stands.

Many who read Daniel chapter three think that initially the central conflict of the story involves idolatry. However, as the story progresses, a different conflict emerges; between the kingship of Nebuchadnezzar and the power of God. This is seen at the conclusion of this narrative; we see how Nebuchadnezzar is amazed by God, not merely by the faith of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Our faith in God and our worship of him must not draw the attention of people to ourselves. Each time Jesus worked a mighty miracle it was not to draw attention to himself but “that God may be glorified.” When mighty deeds are wrought in our life we should not and cannot be the centre of glory even if we are truly holy in God’s eyes. People must be amazed by God as Nebuchadnezzar was, not by our actions, no matter how holy or pious they are.

Faith healers and preachers who have been given such gifts from the Holy Spirit must remember this fundamental guiding principle as should every one of us who serves the Church in any capacity.

Finally, I would like to leave you with some more take aways from the text

1. Remember to be true to God. Just as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego made the right choice and stuck with it despite the rage of many and the threat to their lives, so we need to make right choices. We can’t let difficult circumstances lead us to be unfaithful to God.
2. Remember to entrust yourself into God’s hands. Just as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, in full faith, gave their lives into God’s hands in their trial, so should we because God is more than able to take care of us too.
3. Remember God will be with you. Just as he was with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace, so he will walk with you through your fiery trials.
4. Finally, remember that God will come through for you. Just as he came through for Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, so he will come through for you. Like them, we don’t know how he will do this, through a miracle or strengthening us to endure and overcome in the midst, or in the world to come. But God is faithful and he will come through.

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Faith

From death to life – Tuesday, 5th Week of Lent – Numbers 21:4-9/ John 8:21-30

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/listening-hearing/ based on the Gospel of today. Please click this link.

In order to understand the immediate text of today’s text, we need to place it in its historical background. The Israelites are near the Promised Land, approaching it from the south. Edom has denied Israel the right of passage (20:14-21). The Israelites came to Mount Hor where Aaron died (20:22-29). Aaron was Moses’ brother and Israel’s first high priest. The king of Ar’ad, a Canaanite who lived in the Negeb (southern portion of the Promised Land) fought against Israel, but Israel prevailed (21:1-3).

Scripture tells us that the people of Israel become ‘impatient’ because of the long land route around Edom to the promised land and began to speak against God and Moses while addressing their angst to Moses specifically. ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food, and water; and we detest this miserable food.’ This isn’t the first complaint of this nature that the Israelites have made. Eight times prior to this they have complained against God.

Their complaints about the tastelessness of the food represents a kind of tastelessness of their own, their ingratitude to God who fed them in the desert and prevented them from dying of hunger. Thanksgiving to God for his blessings to us is often one of the prayers we make least often. This could be the first of our reflections from this text; do I have an attitude of gratitude?

In the text of Numbers 21, the utterance of the complaint is immediately followed by the statement, “Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died” (v. 6). The Israelites are stunned by the presence of these deadly serpents. Neither the narrator nor God ever explicitly says that God sent the snakes because the people complained. Yet the people recognized that what is happening is a punishment for their complaints. The people name their sin and quickly repent, asking Moses to intercede with Yahweh to save them. We too know our sin and ought to name it. Naming our sin is an acknowledgment of our wrong doing rather than finding a reason to shift the blame. But then we need to also go one step ahead and repent!

On reading this text, one might be drawn to asking, ‘what kind of God is this who inflicts death on people for their lack of trust’? Yet while it is easy to question the wrath of God one easily forgets that it is the same people who received the law and were bound in covenant with God. A covenant that made them his people under his protection.

Yet God is merciful even to an ungrateful people; but this time with a twist. God does not give the people what they ask for. They want Moses to get God to ‘take away the serpents from them’ (Numbers 21:7). But the serpents do not go away, nor do they stop biting. Instead, God instructs Moses on how to heal the people who are bitten; they are still bitten, but they live.

It would be fairly easy to gloss over the aspects of this passage that we find troubling and focus on God who sends healing right where we need it. So, here is a lesson for us to reflect upon. Deliverance does not come in the way that we expect. Rather than removing the snakes, God sent a cure for snakebite. They’ll still get bitten; that danger doesn’t go away, but God does offer healing if they look in the right direction.

The same can be said of us. God does not always answer us the way we want and take away that which bothers us. The ‘snakes’ in our life, poisonous as they may be do not disappear, rather we get to gaze at Christ on the cross who brings healing to our lives and teaches us to live with the reality of pain and suffering in our midst but now with his saving grace.

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