I recently read a daily reflection that made the following point: “Just as nature abhors a vacuum, Jesus abhors vagueness.” In one sense it is easy to speak in generalities and vagueness in regards to faith and God. “Yes, I love God. I love all people. I want to help and serve everyone. I want peace for the whole world.” It is easy to say these things in the general sense but how do we live in the particular moment? Can I show love to the person I don’t like or understand? Can I be patient in a chaotic moment of family life? Can I take time to pray even though the demands of the day seem unceasing? Can I choose hope even in a time of pain and loss? Can I seek justice in moments of injustice? Can I turn the other cheek even when I am wronged? It is not in speaking nice generalities but rather in the choices of particular moments that the Kingdom of God is found.
One of the teachings of the gospel for today is that our Lord does not disdain the particular. In fact, he chooses to enter into the particular moment as a privileged place of encounter. The gospel gives us two particular moments where Christ is present in his healing grace – the woman with the bleeding disorder and the young girl. We are told that the woman had the disorder for twelve years and that the girl was “a child of twelve”. The use of “twelve” links the older woman and the young girl. For a woman to have a bleeding disorder in Hebraic culture meant that she was perpetually unclean and that she could not have children which would be seen as a great dishonor. The young girl dies at the age of betrothal and near the time she can have a child. Both are tragic and particular circumstances where life is painfully denied. Into both of these particular tragedies Christ enters in and he brings light and healing!
Christ says to Jairus, “Do not be afraid: just have faith.” Christ says the same to us and we must take these words to heart, especially in those moments of struggle and tragedy in life. “Do not be afraid…” Christ is neither separated from pain nor struggle. Christ does not disdain the particular. Christ is even in those moments of pain and he is there with life, healing, peace and hope.
The Book of Wisdom tells us “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living … God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him. But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world…” In the miracles presented in the gospels – the healing of the sick, the casting out of demons, the walking on water in the midst of a storm and the raising of the dead – we are taught that Christ as Lord has overcome all the forces of chaos and evil that would wound and kill body and spirit. We are also shown that God does not fear these moments and is willing to be present within these particularly tragic moments of human life offering his life, healing and grace.
We are not abandoned. Christ is with us. When the storms of life threaten to drown us, Christ is there. When the divisions caused by evil wear us down and threaten to overcome us, Christ is there. When illness and pain break us down, Christ is there. When death shatters us, Christ is there. Our God has overcome all these forces of evil and death. He does not fear them nor does he disdain the particular moment we find ourselves in. Christ is there for us in his life, his healing and his grace and he says to us, “Do not be afraid; just have faith.”
Nicodemus is an interesting figure in the gospel. He is a devout man and someone who is intrigued by Jesus. Nicodemus believes the Jesus is a teacher of God and that the signs which Jesus does prove that God is with him yet Nicodemus wants to fit Jesus into his own paradigm, into his own narrative about how God should act. Before the passage we just heard we are told that Nicodemus comes to Jesus, “by night”. Nicodemus is attracted to Jesus but he is still in the darkness of his own presumptions. How often we are like Nicodemus. How often we know people like Nicodemus.
On my recent vacation in the Canadian Rocky Mountains I learned about the chinook wind. The chinook wind is a rapid climate phenomenon produced by specific atmospheric conditions interacting with the stark geography of the high mountains. If all the proper conditions line up correctly a chinook wind is produced which is a steady stream of warm air that flows down from the mountain tops into the valley below on the eastern side of the Canadian Rockies. This wind has been known to sometimes melt thirty inches of snow in the course of a single day! The largest temperature shift produced by a chinook wind was recorded in the seventies when the wind moved the temperature from forty degrees below zero to forty-five degrees above zero in a twenty-four hour period. In the frigid cold of a Canadian winter the chinook wind is a promise of spring and an end to winter.
There is almost an ordinariness to the way our Lord goes about his mission of proclaiming and living God’s Kingdom.
This last week I saw the movie “Arrival”.
Scholars suggest that by the time Luke composed his gospel the temple had already been destroyed. This grand edifice, seemingly unmovable, adorned with costly stones that people were admiring in this passage was, by the time of Luke setting quill to parchment, just a heap of ruins. It demonstrates how quickly things can change and also how little we really know about what will happen tomorrow. We like to think we are in charge … but we are not.
One of the truths revealed in today’s gospel (Lk. 15:1-10) is that our God is not a God content to let people remain anonymous. The shepherd goes out in search of the lost sheep because that one sheep truly matters to him. The woman turns the house over searching for the lost coin because that coin is of real concern to her. We are of concern to God. We are not alone in a vast universe governed by random chance. We do not have a God who does not care. God is willing to seek each one of us out, willing to even enter the darkness of sin and death, to find us and then rejoice in the finding!
In looking at my Facebook feed this weekend I have been reminded that we are in the midst of graduation season. Picture after picture of smiling graduates, at all levels, all across the country… We certainly celebrate with graduates and congratulate them on what they have achieved. But it is worthwhile to also note that behind every graduate stands dedicated teachers – men and women who often selflessly work for the good of their students.
At the end of Luke’s gospel (Lk. 24:1-12), once the women had shared with the disciples what had occurred at the tomb, we are told that Peter runs to the tomb and upon arriving he bends down and sees “the burial cloths alone”. It seems an almost inconsequential thing. The main fact is the empty tomb, right? The burial cloths are just an after-thought one might think. John, in his gospel, is even more precise – the burial cloths are also noted but then John shares that the cloth used to cover the head of Christ was rolled up in a separate place.
The Alternate Path 