A God who Plans: Plan as He Plans
Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11; 2 Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8
“He who fails to plan, plans to fail,” goes the popular saying. In our contemporary capitalistic economies, planning is essential. Countries and companies that plan normally have better results than others. One area of planning is budgeting. Two areas of budgeting are essential for success in all kinds of planning: expected income and expenditure. It is true that the money built into a budget could be from borrowed money, anticipated earnings or cash in hand. All the same, budgeting keeps one focused, resolute and pro-active, where budgeting is well prepared and rigorously followed. The lot of planners is that they have planned to succeed, whether they be individuals, families, or nations.
Our God, the Christian God, is a planner, a planner of salvation. Like a good planner, he planned and created human beings in his image and likeness; which means, he wants human beings to live in constant communion with himself. Even though “communion” is God’s desire for his creatures, “salvation history,” that is, the history of God’s relationship with human beings has recorded its own ups and downs. There have been times when God and human beings have lived in communion, but most of the times, it has been a history of failures and infidelities from the side of the human person. There was the Fall of our first parents, there was the molding calve during the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, there was the Babylonian captivity, etc.
God’s planning for human beings has included fiscal responsibility and accountability. God puts in place laws to guide human and divine actions. Mostly, God’s planning has been that of quid pro quo – there are expected human behaviors and divine response to those behaviors. In fact, to be the images of God implies that something of God is in the human persons created in his image. There is a compass that directs human activities. Like every compass, there is the possibility of changing one’s course, and developing a deaf ear to the compass. It is precisely this deafening of ears that led to the first reading of today. “Comfort my people,” the first line of the first reading, can only be a message to a people who are either bereaved or traumatized. In the case of our first reading, the Israelites wandered far away from God and God punished their iniquities through the Babylonian captivity. But like a good planner, even in their iniquitous mess, God was planning a reprieve for them. This can only mean one thing, that in God’s plans for human salvation, there is a plan to cope with human sinfulness. In God’s plan for the creation of human beings, God budgeted for human sins and failures. God must have a fund or reserve kept somewhere, from which he salvages human fiscal irresponsibilities.
“Comfort my people” suggests a God who reaches out, digging deep into his “reserved funds” or grace, in order to lavish that on his children, to bring them out of their sins, and to shower his love upon them. “Comfort my people” is a display of God’s mercy upon erring children because sin will never have the last word over the love and compassion of God. What is more, “comfort my people” is a theology of “graced-hope”: God has got human backs through his mercy and love, but “patience” is required on the part of human beings in order to enjoy the redemption and salvation of God. “Comfort my people” is only a first stage in salvation. In his planning, God doesn’t exhaust his reserves once and for all; he sends his “comforts” piece meal, as demands require, and as his plans suggest.
To be living in Nigeria brings home, in concrete terms, what fiscal irresponsibility is, what iniquitous situations and relationships look like. In Nigeria, there are wonderful budgets and plannings, but bad execution. Money is allocated for road rehabilitation, but potholes riddled roads are in the increase yet the money for road rehabilitation is spent at the end of the fiscal year. Pitch darkness greets the inhabitants of cities and towns where electric poles and electric power generating offices and centers are relics of what electricity means. The federal government of Nigeria allocates and pays State Governments money for workers salaries, yet there are states where workers have not been paid for many months. What fiscal irresponsibility can be worse than these examples? In theological parlance, sin messes up a system God puts in place in like manner. God’s history of salvation is more or less God’s actions in cleaning up the mess of human iniquities and disobedience, God’s attempt at restoring human fiscal irresponsibility through his reserved funds.
What is indisputable, biblically, is that God always breaks into human history in unexpected ways, especially in moments when everything seems impossible: slavery in Egypt, crossing the Sea of Reeds, journey through the desert, Babylonian captivity, the destruction of ancient Temples, etc. The apogee of the story of God’s “reserved fund” is the birth of his Son, Jesus Christ. For, human beings can never beat God’s planning, for he is an astute planner. If anything, our first reading foretells the concrete way in which God will “comfort” his people himself. God dispenses with mediators and comes himself, in Christ Jesus, to comfort his people.
“Here is your God” (Isaiah 40:9) announces that no negative condition is permanent because God has taken flash in Jesus Christ to be among us, in order to comfort us in all the “deserts” or difficulties of our lives! “Here is your God” says that God’s delays are not denials and inactivity (2 Peter 3:8); instead, even human sinfulness is an opportunity for God to break into human history, as he usually did, as he will continue to do! Do we realize that the crooked ways being straightened are the impossibilities we experience? Are we convinced that it is our responsibility to construct God’s “highway” in our lives, families and communities – “where righteousness is at home” (2 Peter 3:13)? Can we be voices of truth, justice, peace and reconciliation in our broken world of divisions, divorces, abortions and material conflicts?
“Prepare the way of the Lord” (Mark 1:3), according to our gospel reading, not only reminds us of what we are capable of doing besides sinning — the celebration of human strength by being obedient to God’s commandments — it is also an invitation extended to us to constantly live virtuous lives (2 Peter 3:11). After all, if our Advent — waiting for the Lord — is going to be fruitful, we need to continue “to contemplate the face of Jesus” in every human being because Christ takes flesh in all of us and he visits us in all our impossible situations! If our God comes to us in a physical way to save us, you and I are the physical saviors of the world and one another.
Today, there are many voices that bring consolation to us, amidst our troubled world: the voices of artists of all sorts, not least, the tiny voices of children in our homes that remind us of our fragility and God’s power to make what is fragile strong and powerful. Perhaps the gospel today talks about a unique and distinct voice, a voice of courage and conviction, a voice of love and tenderness; indeed, a voice that calls for action – the proclamation of the good news that God reigns, therefore, we should not worry about the predictions of an imminent doom’s day.
John the Baptist’s voice called the people of his day to repentance and belief in God’s salvation in Jesus Christ. His voice was distinct because it was a voice of courage that challenged people to change their evil ways. It was a voice of love and tenderness because he wanted the people of his day to obtain salvation. Failure to preach the good news today makes you and I haters of humanity because we refuse to offer human beings the opportunity to enjoy salvation. For you and me, what do we use our voices for, to insult others and gossip? Do we spread discouraging or bad news? Are we argents of hope, that our God is bigger and stronger that all that ails our society? Do we make people believe in a God, who is the God of science and makes the impossible possible? In our plannings and budgeting, has God a place in them?
Assignment for the Week:
For this week, can we refrain from lies, gossips and slander? On the contrary, can we bless, praise and encourage one another, especially those going through tough times.