You’re sitting in a coffee shop, about to take a sip of cappuccino, when the stranger approaches.
He pulls a chair up to your table, sits a little too close for comfort, makes eye contact and tells you the following:
“I am about to create new heavens and a new earth. The things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind. Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happiness in what I create.”
Oh Kayyyy, you think. What is this guy trying to sell me?
“No longer shall the sound of weeping be heard there, or the sound of crying.”
Clearly, he has not been to a suburban parish Mass in a while.
“No longer shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not round out his lifetime.”
Well, now, that’s a nice thought. Too many babies die young, often before they are born, and too many adults expire far too soon.
I could appreciate a place where we could live together in peace and harmony.
Sounds a little like heaven.
But imagine what the residents of Palestine thought when they read these words, quoted in today’s first reading. They had to think this Isaiah was a bit of a kook. Life was hard. Death was everywhere. Only the strong survived … the weak were obviously cursed or paying some debt owed by their ancestors.
And here is this guy selling us a new idea. Not buying it.
Fast-forward to Jesus, walking around the countryside and causing a similar stir wherever he went.
In our Gospel today, he returns to the site of his first recorded miracle, Cana, where he had turned water into wine.
You have to imagine there were many in the crowds, watching from afar with skeptical eyes.
Is this guy for real? What is he trying to sell us?
Suddenly a royal official, a military man and a pagan who had no reason to have faith in this Jesus, steps forward – probably at a point of desperation for a sick child (who among us would not get desperate in a case like this?).
Heal my son, he asks. Come to my house before my child dies.
At first, our Lord seems to mock him for seeking a “sign and a wonder” before having faith. I think he was saying those words more for the skeptical eyes and ears that were witnessing this exchange, not the royal official himself.
He, at least, had the courage to ask for healing. How many of us give up in despair and figure what’s the use of trying?
Almost as an afterthought, Jesus tells him to go, your son will live.
And so he does.
Funny, whether you’re encountering a stranger in a coffee shop or sitting among friends and family at Mass, you hear the same message.
Have hope. Do not despair. Jesus can heal. Seek and find. Knock and He will enter.
How many of us let our burdens stop us from believing this truth of the Gospel? How many of us watch with skeptical eyes as the priest lifts the Host high and declares this to be the Body of Christ? How many of us fail to listen to the words of salvation.
Words that should put our fears to rest.
Words of eternal life … in a new heaven, a new earth.
Where “things of the past shall not be remembered.”
