Today’s readings: Isaiah 35, 1-6.10; James 5, 7-10; Matthew 11, 2-11.
An aura of joy transpires from today’s scriptures. It is the joy that comes from a deep conviction that the Lord in our lives is first and foremost a healer, he who throws light where there is darkness, health where there is sickness, strength where there is weakness, enthusiasm where there is tiredness. The joy in the scriptures is not exclusive of suffering and tribulation. Indeed, from a faith perspective, they can co-exist.
In last week’s gospel, John in the wilderness proclaimed a rather harsh image of the Messiah, hailing him as dispenser of wrath and a strict judge. Now from prison he has his doubts and sends to enquire about Jesus, being himself confused on hearing what Jesus was doing. There was a radical difference between what he had previously expected and what now he was seeing and hearing.
Jesus, rather than a judge, reveals himself as a healer, in line with how Isaiah the prophet had already portrayed him and as we read from the first reading. This change of mind of both John the Baptist and his disciples should be very telling for all of us particularly in the present-day situation the Church is going through. We have all been brought up in mainstream Christianity with certain expectations and images of God. But times change and we need to let go of fixed images of God that do not allow the space to change our minds and discern in more depth God’s ways in new times like ours.
I would say it is this change of mind and perspective that we all need to go through in life where personal faith is concerned. Our life’s journey includes moments of crisis and rites of passage that as thresholds can trigger insecurity and uncertainty, and eventually push in one direction or another. This we go through personally as well as collectively.
As St James warns in today’s second reading, it is patience that we need mostly. Patience, first and foremost, with our own selves. In our personal journeys of growth we go through patches that can be rough or smooth, dark or bright. Believing in such cases means remaining focussed on the promise that God’s words have the strength to energise us freshly.
It is a promise, in Isaiah’s words, to make the wasteland rejoice and bloom, to the extent of bringing forth flowers. It is a promise that strengthens our weary hands, that makes us resist the temptation to succumb to fear. We need, in the times we live in, the enthusiasm of the prophet Isaiah that can make us see the marvellous things that cannot be perceived with the naked eye.
We are being too overwhelmed with challenges and changes that are shaping our lives. We find it hard to let faith, instead, shape our way of life and our beliefs. We badly need the inspiration of daily practical wisdom that comes from the living word of God in order to cope creatively and serenely with all that influences us, be it people, forces, events, or the interior void itself which at times may have a strong grasp on us.
It is significant, as we read in today’s gospel, that it was from “his prison” that John the Baptist “had heard what Christ was doing” and sent his disciples to enquire about him. We all have our own prisons, those we build for ourselves or those others impose on us. Yet even within our prison cells, God’s word can still reach us and speak to us loudly and clearly, making us even change mind and behold for ourselves the marvellous things the Lord works in the world around us.
I see this as the most important call we have on the eve of yet another Christmas. We need not let the changes and challenges around us clothe us in fear and gloom. There is still scope in proclaiming joy in our times. But that joy depends on our way of perceiving who really is the Lord who is coming.