What is your hope
for the future?
How often we look
to our history in order better to understand our future! When the author of the Book of Wisdom needs
to remind his people, brought low under Roman occupation, that they must have
faith for the future, he invokes the story of the Hebrew people’s enslavement
in Egypt, and the promise God made on the night of the Passover, that, with sure knowledge of the oaths in
which they put their faith, they might have courage. God redeemed his people, giving them the
opportunity to escape, so long as they put their faith in his promises. Similarly, the people for whom the Book of
Wisdom is written must also trust, have faith, remember God’s care for them in
the past. Psalm 33 reminds us that Blessed are the people the Lord has chosen to be his own. The oppressed can hope for his kindness, with faith in the promise, in awe of God’s
perfect love for them.
The Book of Hebrews offers another model for faith:
the patriarch Abraham, who obeyed
when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as his
inheritance. Accepting to live as a
nomad, Abraham sojourned in the promised
land though he could appreciate it only
from afar. Moreover, by faith Abraham received power to generate, producing Isaac. Indeed, Abraham’s faith was so great that,
even when ordered by God to kill his son, Abraham trusted in God’s plan and offered up Isaac, only to receive Isaac back as a symbol of the
promise to be fulfilled. There is no
greater model for faith in the Old Testament than Abraham.
In Luke’s Gospel,
Jesus promises his disciples that the Father
is pleased to give you the kingdom.
But we can’t take possession of the kingdom if we are holding on to the
tangible things of this earth; Jesus promises an inexhaustible treasure in heaven if only we let go of our belongings and remain vigilant. Like the Hebrew people so many
times before us, we must have faith, focusing on what we cannot see, letting go
of our burdensome connections to the world, ready
to open immediately when the Lord comes
and knocks, that we too might achieve a
better homeland, a heavenly one. Indeed,
if we have faith in Jesus, we are already holding the kingdom – we must not set
it down and walk away, but rather let it be the focus of our existence through
which all else finds meaning, trusting, like Abraham, in God’s promise, and
open to all it can mean in our lives.
This post is based
on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
