God: A Promise Keeper
Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2; Luke 21:25-28, 34-36
What is certain about the prophecy of Jeremiah is the message of hope he preaches in an apparently hopeless situation – the perennial nature of Israel’s infidelity to God. Israel makes covenants with God only to break them. What was predictable of Israel was its fidelity to infidelity to God. This track record is all invasive and pervasive in Jewish history: from the disobedience of Adam and Eve to the deluge as corrective for sin and infidelity; from the worship of the golden calf in the very heart of liberation from Egypt through the rise of monarchy and the apostasies of Israel’s monarchs. Through Jeremiah, prophetism confronts Israel’s infidelity.
But how does God deal with the infidelity of his people Israel? After the disobedience of Adam and Eve as well as the fratricidal killing of Abel by Cain, God finds favor with Noah, with whom he starts anew. God’s call and adventure with Abraham ends with two nations in the one womb of Rebecca – Esau and Jacob – the rise of family division. Through the champion of dreamers, Joseph, a child of Jacob, Israel finds a place of survival in Egypt. The leadership of Moses provides a new beginning out of slavery for Israel into a Promised land.
Just as Israel maintains its track record of infidelity, God guarantees that human infidelity does not hijack divine fidelity. For God, fidelity is creative: God shows mercy and forgives, in order to start afresh. So, the history of God with Israel is that of creative fidelity – God finds reasons to keep his promises in spite of human infidelity.
In the prophecies of Jeremiah, “sin” does not have the last word; there is always a hope of salvation – the cloud of sin wears a silver lining! After all, the name Jeremiah means – Yahweh/God raises up! Indeed, when it seems that Israel is down and out, she bounces back on her feet, and she is up and about again because God never fails to raise his people up when they are down – what a creative fidelity!
Our first reading today makes salvation a divine affair. To assure Israel’s salvation, a savior is promised – “I will raise up for David a just shoot; he shall do what is right and just in the land.” Since sin makes human salvation impossible, after many attempts through leaders and prophets, God offers a future hope of salvation to humanity. God anchors this promise of future salvation in Jesus Christ. Still, a creative fidelity!
A creative Church, like a creative God, sets a season of hope apart and calls it ADVENT SEASON. “Adventus – arrival,” therefore, is this period of hope (Advent Season) that God will save his people in Jesus Christ. The hope that Jesus’ coming will bring us salvation, whether he comes at the moment of our individual death or at the end of time, our hope for salvation rests in Jesus Christ and in God’s creative fidelity to save us.
St. Paul realizes that salvation is a gift of God to human beings, so all he does, in the second reading of today, is to pray, and this is his wish for the Thessalonians and for us: “May God . . . strengthen your hearts, to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones” (1 Thessalonians 3:13).
The realization that salvation comes from God should not send us to bed; on the contrary, Jesus teaches us in the gospel today, the secret of salvation – prayer. The gospel says: “Be alert, praying at all times” (Luke 21:36). Prayer becomes imperative because human beings need divine help to do what is right. Here is an offer to us to be creative in our fidelity to God – prayer – despite the requirements of morality – “But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap” (Luke 21:34).
Human beings tap into God’s creative fidelity for human salvation through prayer. Prayer is the acknowledgment that God is stronger than human weaknesses; praying constantly is the keeping of the hope of salvation alive in ourselves, which leads to the keeping of God’s commandments; yes, “prayer” is our reminder to God that we need his help toward our salvation – human creative fidelity to God.
As long as we remain faithful to prayer, salvation will be ours; why? because our hope in God’s salvation will never fail us, since it did not fail our forebears. Indeed, “hope” is the believe that God will offer us all we need for our justification and salvation! Yes, the hope of ultimate salvation should not blind us here and now as we deal with our addictions to pornography, substance, bankruptcy, lies telling, womanizing, theft, despair and desire for suicide: in all these circumstances, there is hope for us; prayer gives us hope to weather every storm, because God is always faithful to save us from present day predicaments. Let’s keep hope alive and be creative in our fidelity to God.
If our God is a promise keeper, always faithful, we must learn to do the same. Through our sacramental lives, we made promises to God. It is high time we fulfilled our promises. At Baptism, we took an oath to resist the Devil and all his wiles. How well are we keeping that oath? At Marriage, we took the oath of fidelity in sickness and in health, until death do us part. Does this oath resonate with our lives today? At our priestly ordination and religious professions, we freely opted for celibacy/chastity, poverty and obedience. Are these promises and vows kept? Our God is a promise keeper, let us keep our part of the promises made to him.
Assignment for the Week:
Could you do one or both of two things: find time for daily prayers (daily Holy Eucharist, daily recitation of the rosary, daily divine mercy, etc) and/or could you remind yourself daily that your salvation is anchored in Christ, so there is hope for you in Christ?
Fatherayo2u.com, November 24, 2015.