\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He leaves all of us for a brief moment, doesn’t He?\u00c2\u00a0 For some of us, He leaves us for 80 or 90 years or more; others never make it out of their mother’s womb.\u00c2\u00a0 But He abandons all of us, and I’m just using His words from Isaiah.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, we are abandoned and given the opportunity to make a choice on our own- a choice highlighted in today’s Gospel.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what it comes down to.\u00c2\u00a0 God abandons us so we can exercise our own free will.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, as Isaiah goes on to say, it doesn’t matter what we have done in the time we have been abandoned by Him.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, in God’s time, He abandoned us for just an instant- that is all.\u00c2\u00a0 Because we will have an eternity left with Him in the Kingdom of God.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what the good news of the coming of Jesus is all about.\u00c2\u00a0 Because when He comes this Christmas, if we really believe in Him as the Son of God, all can be well for us.\u00c2\u00a0 We can be totally happy knowing that we will at least be the least in the Kingdom of God for all eternity.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not so for the Pharisees and scholars of the law.\u00c2\u00a0 Unlike the average people of their time, the Pharisees and scholars knew too much.\u00c2\u00a0 They were not open to the real thing when it appeared in front of them.\u00c2\u00a0 They were blinded to the simplicity of the message.\u00c2\u00a0 Indeed, they had expectations of what the Messiah would be like, expectations that prevented them from “accepting the plan of God for themselves”. \u00c2\u00a0You see, they thought the Messiah would come to save them physically from their woes.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
And so, let us strive not to fall into the same trap.\u00c2\u00a0 Ask yourself what kind of a Messiah are you looking for?\u00c2\u00a0 Is He one who will answer your expectations for saving you from the trials and tribulations of this World?\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00c2\u00a0 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?\u00c2\u00a0 For some of us, He leaves us for 80 or 90 years or more; others never make it out of their mother’s womb.\u00c2\u00a0 But He abandons all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}