By Colleen O’Sullivan
But Zion said,
“The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” Can a mother forget her infant, be without
tenderness for the child of her womb?
Even should she forget, I will never forget you. (Isaiah
49:14-15)
Jesus answered
the Jews: “My Father is at work until
now, so I am at work.” For this reason
they tried all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but
he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God. (John 5:17-18)
Piety
The Lord is
faithful in all his words and holy in all his works.
The Lord lifts
up all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. (Psalm
145:13cd-14)
Study
All of us
experience times in our lives when we feel bowed down. Maybe we’re dealing with difficult family
issues or problems at work. Perhaps it’s
our own health that is failing or that of a loved one. It could be that we are overwhelmed with
grief at the loss of a beloved friend or family member. Or maybe we relate to the exiled people of
God in today’s first Scripture reading, so far from home and so lonely they thought
even God had forgotten them. Certainly,
on our Lenten journey with Jesus, we see that even our Lord is weighed down by
interior struggle and suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane and experiences feeling forsaken on the Cross. No
one is exempt from experiences of desolation in this life.
Both of
our Scripture readings for today, however, provide words of comfort. In the beginning of the passage from Isaiah,
the prophet speaks of seeing light at the end of the tunnel for the
exiles. He talks of the day when God
will bring them home. In the face of the
exiles’ skepticism, using beautiful, maternal imagery, God says, “I will never
forget you.” In the verse immediately
following today’s reading, God says he has each of us carved on the palm of his
hand. We are loved and are always held
fast in God’s hands.
Prior to
today’s Gospel reading, Jesus has healed a man paralyzed and unable to walk for
38 years. This took place on the Sabbath,
which set up further conflict with the Pharisees. Jesus’ words are interesting – “My Father is
at work until now, so I am at work.”
There was a group of Jews who thought God did nothing on the Sabbath
and, therefore, observant Jews shouldn’t, either. Not all the rabbis agreed
with this, pointing out that people were still being born on the Sabbath, so
God must still be at work creating life. Jesus was making the point that God is
always merciful and loving, seeking our healing and wholeness. Every day, not just 6 days a week. Jesus’ words probably had a much bigger
impact in his time, when there were so many detailed laws about what a person
could and could not do on the Sabbath. In
our day, we scarcely differentiate the Sabbath from any other day. But knowing that God never stops watching
over us and caring for us is comforting.
Action
So, what can we do when we are the ones feeling
bowed down? It’s tempting to fall into
the trap of thinking that things will never be any different and we are always
going to be stuck in our despair or desolation. Or, like the exiles in Babylon, to wonder if
God has forgotten us. But the truth is
that God’s love for us never changes.
It’s life itself that never stays the same; it is always a series of
hills and valleys, with an occasional high peak or deep crevasse thrown in. When
we’re in a valley and can’t hear God’s voice or feel God’s presence, there’s
always another hill, another vibrant experience of God ahead. It’s important to remind ourselves of that. It also helps to call to mind the moments when
we have felt God’s presence and love and have been filled with love for God in
return. Those memories can sustain us in
the inevitable valleys.
No comments:
Post a Comment