What are you expecting?
In this Gaudate Sunday’s reading from Isaiah, the prophet offers
those who have remained faithful in exile a portrait of God in his creative
wonder, creating things anew, bringing what was lifeless back to life: The
desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom
when your God comes to the earth to save you, bringing everlasting
joy. Our limited human vision has a hard
time imagining this miraculous renewal; we are afraid to hope, too scared to
see our own limitations as possibilities – we can’t see with God’s eyes. We can’t really expect, only hope: hope in
the fulfillment of the promise, hope that our own eyes will be opened, hope that our ears will be cleared…
Like John the Baptist in this Sunday’s Gospel from Matthew,
we have built up so many expectations around the coming of Jesus. Like the Israelites before him, John thinks
he knows what to expect: a Messiah who
comes in a blaze of wrath, a powerhouse ready to take on the world! But Jesus is quick to point out that John and
his followers just need to open their eyes:
the prophecies are being filled right in front of them: the
blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear,
the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. Jesus doesn’t come to meet human
expectations: he comes to fulfill God’s
promise of salvation, bringing redemption to all who accept God’s invitation to
relationship.
And what are we to do, as we wait? Trust, as the psalmist does, that God will
keep his faith (Psalm 146), sustaining us, protecting us, raising us
up, setting us free. Even if we really
understood what that meant, it’s not easy to wait; waiting requires patience, as James tells his readers,
repeating that word four times in
this week’s short passage. Patience, patience, patience… It's not easy.
Alas, there is no “What to Expect” book for hearts waiting pregnantly for Jesus to come, and we can’t know what Jesus’s coming will
bring to our lives. But we can be patient, trusting that the depth of our love will deepen our ability
to wait, hearts firm, as we embody God's love for all, expectantly, with
patience.
This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
Photo source
I CANT READ
ReplyDelete