Deacon Larry

 

Thursday of 3rd Week of Advent

Is 54: 1-10; Lk 7: 24-30

Dc. Larry Brockman

He leaves all of us for a brief moment, doesn’t He?  For some of us, He leaves us for 80 or 90 years or more; others never make it out of their mother’s womb.  But He abandons all of us, and I’m just using His words from Isaiah.  Yes, we are abandoned and given the opportunity to make a choice on our own- a choice highlighted in today’s Gospel.  A choice that the Jewish people of John the Baptist’s time, including the lowest of low, the tax collectors who collaborated with the Romans, were given the freedom to make.  We are all given the choice to find God; accept Him; believe in Him; and be Baptized and follow His lead from the Gospel; or to reject Him and his teachings for something else, like the Pharisees and scholars of the law did.  That’s what it comes down to.  God abandons us so we can exercise our own free will.   

Now, as Isaiah goes on to say, it doesn’t matter what we have done in the time we have been abandoned by Him.  When we choose God and his will for us going forward, he will welcome us back and treat us like that abandoned wife that was welcomed back.  In fact, in God’s time, He abandoned us for just an instant- that is all.  Because we will have an eternity left with Him in the Kingdom of God.  And so whatever sufferings we endured while we were abandoned- failed relationships; physical or mental pain; hard lives; whatever, will ultimately seem like just an instant in time.  That’s what the good news of the coming of Jesus is all about.  Because when He comes this Christmas, if we really believe in Him as the Son of God, all can be well for us.  We can be totally happy knowing that we will at least be the least in the Kingdom of God for all eternity.   

Not so for the Pharisees and scholars of the law.  Unlike the average people of their time, the Pharisees and scholars knew too much.  They were not open to the real thing when it appeared in front of them.  They were blinded to the simplicity of the message.  Indeed, they had expectations of what the Messiah would be like, expectations that prevented them from “accepting the plan of God for themselves”.  You see, they thought the Messiah would come to save them physically from their woes.   

And so, let us strive not to fall into the same trap.  Ask yourself what kind of a Messiah are you looking for?  Is He one who will answer your expectations for saving you from the trials and tribulations of this World?  Or is He a Messiah who comes into your heart this Christmas just to whisper to you the “plan of God” for you, hard as it may be in the brief instant of time that is your life relative to the infinite time of God’s eternity. 

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