Are you willing to
wait for God’s plan to unfold?
When the prophet
Isaiah foretells of Israel’s deliverance from bondage in Babylon, his vision is
magnificent, surpassing all that humans could reasonably expect: The
desert and the parched land will exult, Isaiah says, the steppe will rejoice and bloom.
Everything that Isaiah proclaims is out of season, out of sequence, and
thus impossible… and yet! In essence,
Isaiah is describing God’s activity, not human activity; the impossible is
possible only for God, and Isaiah promises that God will indeed achieve the
impossible out of love for us:
extraordinary healing, rebirth, new life, the lame leaping and the mute
singing. Only God can make all of this
happen. Psalm 146 confirms this vision
of God’s extraordinary activity: The Lord gives sight to the blind; the Lord
raises up those who were bowed down.
God is the only source of strength, of the good; the psalm is a
statement of our faith in God’s ability to do what seems to us to be
impossible.
It’s hard to wait
for God’s plan to unfold, though. In Matthew's Gospel, John
the Baptist wants to know if Jesus is the
one who is to come – he has a certain idea of the Messiah, but his
expectations risk blinding him to what God is doing. Jesus instructs John to pay attention to how
Jesus himself is fulfilling the promises transmitted by Isaiah: the
blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear,
the dead are raised. It’s time for
John to surrender to God’s vision, and to remain patient with God’s plan for
salvation to unfold. Even after Jesus’
death and resurrection, it’s important to remain patient, James reminds his
audience: See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being
patient with it… The Christian community is suffering, but they must be patient and trust that, even though
they can’t necessarily see God at work in their lives, God’s mercy will be
revealed in the mercy they show one another.
God has accomplished the impossible already, and will again. We have but to be willing to wait for God’s
plan to unfold, patient and trusting in the
Lord God who keeps faith forever.
This post is based
on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordart.com
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