GOD IS NOT AN AUTOMATED MACHINE: SWITCH HIM ON AND HE WORKS We live in an automated or quick-fix society. Just with the touch of a button or switch, so many things happen: lights come on, the computer starts functioning, the gas or electrical cooker starts burning, the hover does the cleaning, the washing machines do the cleaning, you hear the voice of the other over a phone, live pictures of people appear over the TV, the car starts moving and so on. With GPS and sat nav, moving from place to place becomes so easy and one does not need to stop somewhere to ask for directions or cross check maps. Once the button or switch is touched and the expected response from the gadget does not take place, we immediately think something is wrong. We either look for someone to repair it or we throw and buy a new one. Yes, everything has to be fast, immediate, easy in order to save time. While cherishing the inventions of contemporary man, one at the same time worries about the virtues that these inventions have taken from us: patience and effort to wait for answers and results. Instead of gaining much time for ourselves, we have rather become more hyperactive and having no time for ourselves as people in that past. Most people have become impatient, nervous and easily give up in the midst of crisis. We can understand why so many suffer from psychosomatic diseases and all the increase in cancer. Being children of the world, we can easily relate to God in this mind-set. We ask or request and then God grants. When He doesn’t, we think something is wrong somewhere and start looking for options and at times, totally abandon Him. The birth, life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus tell us that God has His own plan for each and every one of us and the world in general. God cannot be rushed. He knows when to pop in. And that is why in biblical language, the word used for time in relation to God is called KAIROS, which means opportunity. On the other hand, human time is called CHRONOS, which means measured time (seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years). As in His own appropriate time God called Abraham, gave him a son Isaac, saved Joseph as a slave in Egypt, liberated the Jews from slavery in Egypt, brought the Jews to the Promised Land and in the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4) sent His Son Jesus Christ to redeem us, so too He does with us. When we pray to God to assist us, we cannot put Him in measured time because “with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” as we read from 2 Peter 3:8 or in Psalm 90. Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to that of the mustard seed: And He was saying, The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows-- how, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head.… Mt 13:31, Lk 13:19). On this Easter Day our faith and hope in Jesus should therefore be strengthened to make us sing “Alleluia”. We are not singing and praising God because we have no problems. No!!! Instead, we are singing and praising God because in Jesus, the answer to all our problems has been resolved with the gift of the resurrection. The resurrection gives meaning to our suffering. St Paul puts it thus: ‘For if the dead are not raised, neither is Christ; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is pointless and you have not, after all, been released from your sins. In addition, those who have fallen asleep in Christ are utterly lost. If our hope in Christ has been for this life only, we are of all people the most pitiable’ (1 Cor. 15:15-19). God will deliver us at His own time and shame those who assail us as He did in Jesus. Christ’s life, death and resurrection, the life we have been baptised in, gives us the assurance that it is rewarding to be good and loving at all times. Evil and sin, which are the powers of darkness, will always be destroyed by the forces of good and love. Therefore, do not be tired of being good or loving, remaining faithful to your Christian principles, to the baptismal promises that you made last night and today. Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI reminded us on the day he was installed as Bishop of Rome: “Do not be afraid! Open wide the doors for Christ… No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life. Amen.” LET US BEGIN A NEW LIFE TODAY WITH JESUS SINGING ALLELUIA, THE LORD IS RISEN!!! HAPPY EASTER TO YOU ALL
Posted on: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 16:16:43 +0000
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