He Has Not Left Me Alone

Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

By Melanie Rigney

By Illustrators of the 1897 Bible Pictures and What They Teach
Us by Charles Foster [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

… (T)he LORD said to Moses, "Make a seraph and mount it on a pole, and whoever looks at it after being bitten will live." Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. (Numbers 21:8-9)

O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you. (Psalm 102:2)

"When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me. The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone because I always do what is pleasing to him." (John 8:28-29)

Piety

Lord, instill in me a rock-solid faith in You and Your love for me.

Study

They didn’t trust him. That’s what it came down to. The Israelites were tired, thirsty and hungry. They may have been slaves in Egypt, but in that moment, the wilderness seemed a lot worse than anything they had endured in captivity. And so they complained—against God and Moses. It took the bite of venomous snakes for them to realize they’d never been left alone in the wilderness. The Lord used a tangible reminder—that bronze serpent on a pole—to remind them of His greatness, and of His love, as those who looked upon the reminder recovered.

In the same way, Jesus reminds the people in today’s Gospel reading that the Lord does not leave us alone, all appearances to the contrary, if we do what pleases Him. Soon, we will see in the daily readings Jesus’s own response when it appeared to all reasonable people the Father had abandoned him in the wilderness. The Father hasn’t abandoned us either. All we need do is trust and have faith… look upon the Cross… and live.

Action

Spend some time in contemplation with a crucifix. What is your wilderness? In what way do you doubt the Lord’s concern for you?