“Jesus Christ is risen!” – “He is truly risen!” Dear brothers and sisters, indifference, self-centredness, division and forgetfulness are not words we want to hear at this time. We want to ban these words for ever! They seem to prevail when fear and death overwhelm us, that is, when we do not let the Lord Jesus triumph in our hearts and lives. May Christ, who has already defeated death and opened for us the way to eternal salvation, dispel the darkness of our suffering humanity and lead us into the light of His glorious day, a day that knows no end.” Pope Francis
The Lord Almighty is with us. . . . He says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” —Psalm 46:7, 10
When we ask children to be still, our goal is that they stop talking or crying and listen to what we have to say. Sometimes we must stand and shout this with authority, and other times we can just cradle them with a gentle “Shhh.”
In this psalm, God is using both an outdoor voice and an indoor voice to assure his children that there is nothing too big for the Lord to handle. We need not be afraid—regardless of the surrounding chaos—because God is right there with us in times of trouble. He both lifts his voice above the uproar (verse 6) and draws us close with the quiet whisper “Be still, my child; I am here.”
There are days when the pain level is so high, the disappointment so deep, and the fear so crippling that we can lose sight of the God who is our refuge and strength. Desperation can drive us away from God, and we can find ourselves craving his commanding, large-and-in-charge presence along with his intimate words of assurance.
When Jesus’ disciples cried out to him in the midst of a raging storm, Jesus stood up, rebuked the wind, and told the waves, “Quiet! Be still!”—and all was calm (Mark 4:39).
What do you need Jesus to calm in your mind and heart? Pause for a moment, and hear him inviting you into the stillness of God’s presence.
God, you know our every thought and how we let our worries crowd you out and take over. Please still our racing minds, and draw us close with your assuring embrace. Amen.
I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me.— Psalm 77:1
The phone call. The knock on the door. The doctor’s words. The death pronouncement. Many of us can remember times in our lives when we received news that we immediately knew would change the course of our future. Waves of dread ran through our bodies, and we could barely stand. “Oh, God!”
For followers of Christ, calling out to our God—the source of our life and strength and hope—is a natural response to shock, fear, disbelief, and grief. Sometimes “Oh, God!” is all we can say as our mind races and our world blurs. It’s our 911 call to the God of the universe.
One of the wonderful things about the Psalms is that, by example, we are granted permission to cry out to God in desperation. It’s human to fear death when we’re diagnosed with cancer. And it’s human to want to die when we lose a precious child or spouse. God’s people are not required to be stoic in difficult times. Instead, we are invited to collapse into the arms of God, who will hold us tightly, catch our tears, and carry us through whatever lies ahead.
The writer of this psalm does not rush to resolution but lingers in the distress and sleeplessness of overwhelming grief. He merely asks God to help and to hear. And that’s more than enough.
Oh, God, sometimes life hits us with such hard blows that we can barely breathe. Thank you that when we feel overwhelmed with fear or grief, you hear our cries and come near to us. Amen.
“ O almighty and merciful God, Lord of the universe and of history. All that You have created is good and your compassion for the mistakes of mankind knows no limits. We come to You today to ask You to keep in peace the world and its people, to keep far away from it the devastating wave of terrorism, to restore friendship and instill in the hearts of your creatures the gift of trust and of readiness to forgive.”—Pope Francis
Pope Francis never hesitates to turn the light of truth inward as well as outward. The Gospel, especially as John tells it, reminds us that Jesus suffered as much at the hands of those who shared his religious faith as he did at the hands of outsiders. Persecution happens because of misguided power, anger at perceived injustice, fear of those who are not like us, who don’t share our beliefs and sometimes even our opinions. What begins as a disagreement over ideas can be magnified and escalated into rejection, ostracism, violence, and even death. And it can—and does—happen among Catholics of different philosophies, between Catholics and other Christians, between Christians and those of other faiths. In today’s Gospel the Pharisees sneer at Nicodemus when they ask if he, too, is from Galilee, a rural region that the residents of Jerusalem considered backward and inferior. We do this even today. We think we know how people will behave based on what part of the country they’re from. We divide our own cities and towns into good areas and bad areas. We absorb the prejudices of lifelong citizens even when we’re new to an area. Often we wouldn’t think of going to another part of town because of what we think we know about it, often based only on what we hear from others. Spend some time today learning about another faith, another culture, another set of beliefs. Set aside as much as is humanly possible the division of us and them, me and other. Look at the world from someone else’s perspective.
Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us, he sets himself against our doings…. To us he is the censure of our thoughts. Merely to see him is a hardship.”—Wisdom 2:12, 14
“[Jesus] had decided not to travel in Judea because some of the Jews were looking for a chance to kill him…. Some of the people of Jerusalem remarked ‘Is this not the one they want to kill?’”—John 7:1, 25
We have perhaps read the studies which show that once a group has decided to differentiate itself from another group, the rules of conversation change toward that group. We are inclined to believe the worst of them, paranoia and conspiracy theories soon abound, they are fair game for the commentators, and our chosen mistrust looks for any justification whatsoever to fear, hate, or even kill. Soon any defensive or even offensive attacks toward that person or group are fully rationalized and justified. It is a rare person who can stand uninfluenced by this field of gossip and innuendo. This is the sad pattern of human history. It is just such an atmosphere that is presented in both readings today, as we near the climactic events of Holy Week. The taunting verses from the book of Wisdom sound familiar to most Christians because they are the backdrop of the Crucifixion scene: “If he is the son of God, then God will defend him.” In the full text we read a kind of bravado and defiance, daring the “just person” to prove himself. It feels like the school bully mocking the classmate who might be smarter, more popular, or even more mature. For some strange reason, fearful humans are threatened by anyone outside of their frame of reference. They are always a threat and must be brought down. The same pattern is then found in the Gospel. So strange that even religious authorities can speak openly of wanting to kill Jesus, and the crowds even openly know about this. What has religion come to? Vengeance is often an open, but denied secret when fear and gossip reign in a society. Every attempt is being made to discredit Jesus, and even his family of origin, which is a very common pattern. (The whole of John 7 might give you even more of the feeling of malice and intrigue than the selected passage here in the Lectionary.) Jesus is slowly being isolated for the attack, he moves around “secretly.” You can feel his loneliness and anguish, and all he can do is claim his true origins—to deaf ears. In these days, we are being invited to share in the passion of Jesus, and in the aloneness and fear of all who have been hated and hunted down since the beginning of time.
“God of loving truth, keep me from the world of gossip and accusation. Do not let me ‘kill’ others, even in my mind or heart.”
“He took six hundred select chariots, and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them.” – Exodus 14:7 NASB
Pressured by the results of the plagues, Pharaoh finally agreed to give the Israelites their freedom. Then, he changed his mind. He was so serious that he pursued them with a mighty army, including hundreds of “select chariots.” The size and firepower of that force filled the Israelites with fear. They must have felt overwhelmed! Trapped, they had no other choice but to depend on God.
We all know what it is like to feel overwhelmed, especially when facing strong opposition that is well-equipped, able to draw from abundant resources. Like the Israelites, we may feel vulnerable, inadequate, and hopeless. It’s easy to be discouraged or filled with despair. But these are moments to turn to God, cry out for His wisdom, stand on His Word, believe His promises, and trust Him to provide everything we need.
The Bible teaches that He is the God of miracles. He may allow us to experience seemingly impossible situations, so we learn to depend on Him and not on ourselves.
No matter what you face today, don’t allow fear or doubt to cripple you. Commit the situations you face to God. Then have faith. Believe His Word. He is on your side. With His help, you can be victorious in any situation. That was true for Israel as they faced Pharaoh’s army. And it’s true for you in all of the circumstances you face.
Prayer
Father, I commit these situations to You: ______. I depend on You. Thank You for bringing me peace and victory. In Jesus’ name, amen.
“At times we go through moments of darkness in our personal, family or social life, and of fear that there is no way out. We feel frightened before great enigmas such as illness, innocent pain or the mystery of death. In the same journey of faith, we often stumble encountering the scandal of the cross and the demands of the Gospel, which calls us to spend our life in service and to lose it in love, rather than preserve it for ourselves and protect it. Thus, we need a different outlook, of a light that illuminates the mystery of life in depth and helps us to move beyond our paradigms and beyond the criteria of this world.” Pope Francis
What startled me over and over in so many of the psalms is the emotional contrast. First there’s often a lament, not sugar-coated or minimized, not swept away or judged. Instead, the suffering is eloquently described. For example, the early lines of Psalm 69: “I am wearied with crying out, my throat is sore.” Guilt, shame, reproach, and bitterness follow. Then, a but appears. “But I lift up this prayer to thee.” Over and over I found these sudden reversals. How did they make sense? After a few months of a daily morning practice, I understood the pattern. I would read many lines of anguish. Once the painful truths are expressed, in detail, not rushed, there’s a sense of being deeply heard and listened to—heard by God. Once that internal, intimate ache is honored, we find space in our heavy hearts to move around. We can take that leap of faith and trust, again and again. What the psalms began to teach me is to stay true to my human grief, to articulate it, to bring the fear and frustration straight to God. By doing that, faith will appear, often suddenly, always the balm we have been seeking.
