INTRODUCTION
Those who prefer to live in darkness are always afraid of the light of God. And they often adopt the way of violence in order to make sure that the light is put off. The first reading presents the suffering of Jeremiah amidst an impious people who sought for a way to eliminate him so that their evil deeds will remain underground. And Jesus in the Gospel warns his disciples to be aware of the presence of darkness in the world which will stop at nothing to deem their light, yet they should not be afraid because they are already children of the light loved by the Father. And St Paul in the second reading completes the message by affirming Christ, the New Adam as that light that came into the world to chase away the darkness of sin caused by the first Adam. Therefore no matter the heat of the struggle between good and evil, good will always triumph.
FIRST READING: Jeremiah 20:10-13
Biblical scholars attributed the authorship of the book of Jeremiah and that of Lamentations to the prophet Jeremiah (650 BC to 580 BC) with the help of his secretary prophet Baruch. The type of difficulties that signed the life and ministry of the prophet, as described in the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations, prompted scholars to refer to him as “the weeping prophet”.
Evidently, in the first scene of his encounter with God, the prophet expressed a certain level of fear as if he had an a priori knowledge of the suffering that awaits him: “Ah, ah, ah, Lord Yahweh; you see, I do not know how to speak: I am only a child” (Jer 1:6), but then the immediate response of and pledge of security from God to him would become a watch word throughout his ministry: “Do not be afraid of confronting them, for I am with you to rescue you, Yahweh declares” (V.8).
Today’s reading narrates the intensity of the suffering of Jeremiah; a suffering that is not just limited in the hands of his enemies but even his familiar friends. Thus, the prophet found himself alone and unsecured in the midst of the world. But then he remembered that there is still one friend left and who could not possibly abandon him. This is why the rest of the reading turns the attention of the readers to the spring of confidence demonstrated by Jeremiah amidst his suffering: “But the Lord is with me, as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed.” And such full confidence in God made the prophet to intone the praise of his victory even before he actually experienced it: “Sing to the Lord, praise the Lord, for he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers”.
MESSAGE
The message of this passage is simple.
1.Those who have made God their hiding place will never regret in evil days, for the squad of problems amounts to nothing when the Lord is involved.
2. One who is genuinely called by God will always refer himself to Him and never to trust in his capacity. Our dispositions to challenges determine how much we truly love God.
SECOND READING: Romans 5:12-15
In this catechetical instruction, Paul reminds the Christians of Rome the dreaded power of sin, so powerful enough to impose death on humanity. He thus attributed the reality of suffering and death to the event of Genesis 3 which though was a story of the fall of one man but in him all have fallen and became subject to the reigning power of death. However Paul contrasts the sin of the first man with that of the righteousness of the second man (Jesus) and affirms that the obedience of the latter superseded the disobedience of the former, and his death and resurrection brought about reconciliation and life to humanity. Paul though does not speak of the physical death anymore because it is a reality that defines the nature of created beings (mortality), rather he speaks of spiritual death which still demonstrates the deadly power of sin. Hence, the Pascal mystery of Christ was meant to redeem man from eternal death thanks to the reconciliation it wrought with the Father.
The Apostle affirms that with the reconciliation brought by the second Adam through his death and resurrection, we have died with Him to the law, to sin, to self and to the world. Therefore the redeemed need not be afraid of death because it has simply become a passage to the fulness of life with God. This is justified in the later pages when he said: “While we are alive, we are living for the Lord, and when we die, we die for the Lord: and so, alive or dead, we belong to the Lord” (Rm 14:8).
GOSPEL: Matthew 10:26-33
This passage of the Gospel of Matthew speaks of the consequences of professing faith in God and of announcing the Gospel. Matthew retained this discourse of Jesus as a message of encouragement for the early Christians whose faith was greeted with hurribly persecutions. This passage and similar ones became the most read and memorized by the Christians in this era which served as reasons to willingly embrace martyrdom. Thus the passage underlines three possible reasons why the believers should not be frightened:
1. The first reason is that their persecutors will not be able to stop them from succeeding in their mission because the God whom they proclaim knows the secret plan of the enemy and will not allow it to remain hidden forever: “Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered.” Paul reiterates this in another passage: “The Lord will bring to light the hidden things of darkness” (1 Cor 4:5). Therefore God will not only dominate the power of evil, He will equally vindicate the lives of his faithful.
2. The second reason not to be afraid is that the power of the enemy does not know eternity. It is simply a spazio-temporal dominance. The realistic message of the passage resides on the fact that death is already an existential reality. Thus the nature of ones death does not matter so much (whether by way of nature or by violence). That is why Jesus affirms that the power of the oppressor is only limited to causing physical death (which dies all too soon in any case), but has no single power and authority over the soul, for only God does. The passage does not negate the dreadful nature of death, rather it insists that on no account should the fear of death be a reason to renounce ones faith. This is why the post apostolic Church (aware of the strict message such as this) always condemned the apostate Christians as those cut off completely from the body of Christ and imposed unimaginable penance on those who wished to return.
3. Jesus makes it clear that the third reason why his followers should not be afraid is God’s compassionate love. If the Father can take care of trivial bird like the sparrow what then can He not do for those whom He loves? So there is no need to be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows (v. 31). He is so attentive to you to the point that every single hair on your head is known to Him, for He has counted them all. Jesus simply tells his followers that God knows them through and through and is always aware of everything they go through – and nothing about them escapes Him his knowledge. This teaching of Jesus with a strong warning to be steadfast in witnessing Him before men as He never ceases to stand before the Father on their behalf. But for those who will deny Him before men, they will have no place before the Father. In this, Matthew underlines the danger of apostasy. Hence to deny God equals to accepting eternal damnation wilfully.
LIFE MESSAGE
1. YOU WORTH MORE THAN SPARROWS
If there is anything we must be sure of in this life, it is the fact that God loves us and cannot exchange his love for us for anything else. The power of Jesus’ death on the cross turned God into a ‘slave of love’ for us even while we are sinners. He offers us countless opportunities for change. He makes rain to fall for us and the sun to shine for us. We do not pay for breath and which we cannot even afford to pay for no matter how rich we might be. But his heart bleeds to see the way we live sometimes. Our lives are often dotted with sin and corruption that we tend to reduce our prices and worth to that of sparrows sold for a penny. And even while we result to ‘good for nothing’ and due for auctioning as man would do, He still cannot exchange us for anything because every single hair on our head is important for Him. This page of the Gospel is a renewed call for us to know how much God loves us and the reason why we must remain steadfast even when life persecutes us. We worth more than sparrows.
2. SUFFERING COMES WITH YES
Many believers have either lost their faith in God completely or are lukewarm and do not lend much interest to His cause because He seems insensitive to their sufferings. To feel abandoned by God is an almost everyday experience of faith because it is very hard to reconcile our daily challenges with the idea of a loving and caring Father. But in reality, this does not come from the fact that we are truly convinced that God is insensitive but from the fact that we are mortally afraid of negatives. The ‘negative’ always threatens, and when we are not able to stand it, we are automatically placed under its control. Thus, it is its voice of dominance over us that often speaks on our behalf telling us how it is stronger than God and how God has abandoned us. Therefore the crisis of faith comes from subscribing to the voice of the negative.
It is not enough to be aware that suffering exist. It is part of faith to accept that suffering exist and that it is a personal experience each one of us must necessarily make. Hence, the acceptance of the existence of suffering should then be accompanied with the assurance that it is always transient. And this conviction not only helps us to have mastery over suffering, it equally helps us to remain steadfast in God.
The prophet Jeremiah leads us on this path. He saw it all. He was felt alone in the world of suffering. But just look at this: “But the Lord is with me…” Friends when suffering knocks our doors; and when its voice roars within, let us not be tempted to use the expression, ‘the Lord has abandoned me.’ Jeremiah lends us the language that is unpleasant in the ear of our suffering, “but the Lord is with me.” Our God suffers with us. He is never passive and insensitive to our situations. One of the secrets to my personal spirituality is the keeping of the crucifix visible anywhere I am. In it I see my hunger, my thirst, my nakedness, my bleeding wounds, my loneliness, and my death. And afterall my prayer and consolation will be, ‘He passed through it into glory. So I will survive through Him.’
My dearest, when we feel lonely and abandoned, when it seems that our prayers are unanswered, God knows and cares. His silence means a lot. Only those in the secret place of the Most High understand it.
PRAYER
Watch over your faithful O Lord. Give us the strength of mind and heart to keep walking on the path of this world so that our struggles may not pull us aback nor make us slip away from you until we are finally united with you in eternity. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
PAX VOBIS!
