The Key to Happiness: “Blessed is he who is not scandalized by me” (Matthew 11:6)
Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11
“Happiness” is not the absence of problems, but what we make of problems and troubles that surround us daily. You see, the power of problems and troubles come from our imagination of the negatives, that we have been abandoned, unloved and uncared for. “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10) was the statement of Nehemiah to those weeping in sorrow over the ruins of Jerusalem and its temple. They forgot about the joy that animated them from the good news “each one of you can now leave Babylon and return home,” the good news from King Cyrus, “go home to rebuild the temple of your God”; the strength and gifts from Babylonians that helped them to weather the journey from present day Iran (Babylon) to Jerusalem. Their sadness arose with the sight of the temple ruins and the devastation of the city of Jerusalem. Yet, there were some people still living among those ruins, who were glad to welcome their deported brothers and sisters back home. For those who lived among the ruins of Jerusalem, the arrival of the deportees was a sign of hope for the future, happiness for the presence of more hands to rebuild the ruins among which they lived for years. You see, one person’s reason for sadness, sorrow and grief, is another person’s motif for happiness, hope and courage: “happiness” is about your attitude towards what God is doing!
According to Isaiah, in our first reading, God has provided an abiding and lasting motif for happiness that is neither dependent on human beings nor on earthly successes, but on God’s fidelity to his promises to each one of us and to humanity as a whole: “Those whom the Lord has ransomed will return and enter Zion singing, crowned with everlasting joy; they will meet with joy and gladness, sorrow and mourning will flee” (Isaiah 35:10). Joy and happiness come from what the Lord is doing; God’s job and activities in human lives is to “ransom” people from all that plagues them, whether they be sin, ill-health, poverty and political issues. Our first reading compares God’s action in human lives to what the rain does to a desert: “The desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom. They will bloom with abundant flowers, and rejoice with joyful song” (Isaiah 35:1-2a). Our general knowledge of rain is that it is seasonal, so it doesn’t fall everyday. Also, our experience with rain water is that we need to collect and conserve it in reservoirs to be used for continuous irrigation, if we don’t want an immediate return of aridity and desertification. This is what happens with the blessings of the Lord, our hope of perpetual happiness and joy. When God ransoms us, individually and collectively, we need to store up God’s blessing of happiness and joy to weather our arid days.
To speak of aridity is to remember John-the-Baptist. It was from prison that John-the-Baptist sent a message to Jesus inquiring whether the messianic age of liberation from prison, restoration of sight to the blind and the Lord’s year of favor/liberty, promised by Isaiah 61:1-3, had come. It was in the same prison of his, without setting him free from prison, that Jesus sent back words to John-the-Baptist confirming indeed that the messianic era had dawned – the blind see, the deaf hear and the poor receive the good news. What a paradox of messianism, while some enjoy the fruit of the messianic age and the fulfillment of the prophecies of Isaiah, and others, like John-the-Baptist, must only hear it but remain in physical prison up until Herod beheads him!
Fair enough, John-the-Baptist was beheaded in prison, while Jesus presents a eulogy of John and lavished encomiums on him as the prophet promised by God, as the precursor to the Messiah and as the greatest ever born of a woman. However, John-the-Baptist was not asked by Jesus whether he wanted to die in prison or preferred liberation from prison – this is where Christians have problem with God, when God decides for them without asking their opinion about what they want for themselves!
Well, if we must celebrate today as Gaudete Sunday – Rejoice/Happiness Sunday – and consider our readings today as sources of joy and happiness, then, the letter of James, our second reading, teaches us some lessons about happiness. Happiness comes only to the patient person who waits on God and accepts God’s planning for him and the nature of happiness that God accords him/her. According to James, we all need to be like a farmer, who plays his role of clearing and planting good seeds on the land and waits for the harvest time. He plants, after the rains come down, when God decides to send his rain. He harvests at the time the seeds produce crop for harvest, not at his own time. The happiness at harvest time and the nature of harvest, bumper or not, still depends on God, and not on the farmer. You and I are the farmers, in the post-physical messianic age of Jesus-Christ, in need of patience and cooperation with what God is doing and must still remain happy.
John-the-Baptist received the message of Jesus in prison without organizing a prison-break-riot to guarantee his freedom, because Jesus didn’t free him from prison. John-the-Baptist, “the greatest born of a woman,” died in prison under the gaze and ante-mortem eulogy of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. What is more? John-the-Baptist was faithful to his mission, and, without scandal at Jesus, fulfilled the expectation of Jesus in this statement – “And blessed is the one who takes no offense/scandal at me.” Oh yes, John-the-Baptist was not disappointed in the Messiah because he was not liberated from prison: he kept his cool. Consequently, John-the-Baptist received his liberation, the ultimate and best liberation the Messiah could ever offer, because the Messiah himself will willingly undergo the same liberation – martyrdom; not the pain of martyrdom for John-the-Baptist, but the reward of martyrdom – eternal life, so that John-the-Baptist could be upgraded beyond the “least” in the kingdom of heaven; for as long as John-the-Baptist remained human in the flesh, “the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” The ultimate price of eternal life, which is the highest messianic trophy, is what John-the-Baptist received – heavenly reward; and, what awaits you and I, should we be faithful in our Christian journeys, despite our possible and probable physical imprisonments and non-physical realization of messianic promise, is eternal life.
Here and now, let our happiness and joy remain intact because some will continue to receive their messianic fulfillment through healings of their physical infirmities, while others will only receive the ultimate reward of the messianic promise of eternal life in heaven. Whatever maybe the case for you and me, our second reading offers us the strategy for happiness here and now: “Do not complain, brothers and sisters, about one another, that you may not be judged . . . Take as an example of hardship and patience, brothers and sisters, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord” (James 5:). Our complaints, gossips and grudges take away and diminish our happiness and that of others. “‘Happiness’ is not the absence of problems, but what we make of problems and troubles that surround us daily”. Even in prison, John-the-Baptist found joy; what about you?
Assignment for the Week :
Find reasons to be happy all week along.
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