Appearances Deceive
Thirty-Third Week of Year II Saturday, November 19, 2016
The Responsorial (Psalm 144) calls those doing the work of the Lord to trust in the Lord: “Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!”
In
Revelation 11: 4-12 the angel
promised John that God’s servants would be victorious; not protected.
The
two “witnesses” (possibly an allusion to Peter and Paul, martyred in Rome under
Nero) had their time of power on earth, but were eventually killed and left
unburied — to let “the earth’s inhabitants gloat over them.” But after the
“three and a half years” (symbol for any persecution, according to the Jerusalem Bible; cf. Luke 4:25; James 5:17) they “went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies
looked on.” Like Jesus, they were defeated on earth, by the standards of this
world, but they triumphed both on earth and in heaven through the aftermath of
their death.
God
sometimes lets his holy ones exercise something other than purely spiritual
power on earth — as Jesus did occasionally, though rarely (see John 18:6; perhaps Luke 4. Healing miracles and casting out demons would be “purely
spiritual” power). But usually, like Jesus, they are eventually handed over in
weakness to the powerful of this world to suffer and die at their hands.
This
may be God’s method of keeping it clear that his way of establishing the reign
of God is not the way of earthly power. Jesus did not come to be that kind of
messiah (which is why his people, in the name of us all, rejected him). The
only power he relied on, or taught his followers to rely on, is the power of
truth and love. This is probably the Gospel’s greatest challenge to faith and
hope. But those who can accept it proclaim unwaveringly, “Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!”[1]
In
Luke 20: 27-40 the Sadducees, who
denied the resurrection, asked Jesus which of a woman’s seven husbands would be
hers in heaven. What he answered, basically, was, “You don’t have any idea how
things will be in heaven.” Everything will be so different that we cannot apply
to life there the same limitations we deal with here.
We
may think here that certain things are irrevocably lost or damaged. This is to
forget what God is. “Nothing is impossible to God.”[2]
God gives, not only life but existence itself: nothing exists except in the
measure God gives it being. And what God gives, only he can take away.
Jesus
says, “All are alive for him.” We add as a consequence, “And can have that
‘life to the full’ that Jesus came to give.” We need to count on that.
As
stewards of his kingship, we work to preserve everything and everyone God made.
We never give up on anyone. “Blessed be
the Lord, our Rock!”
Initiative:
Be Christ’s steward. Find peace in humility and abandonment.
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