PEOPLE OF HOPE

  Today’s 1st reading speaks of God promising to Abraham that he’ll be a father of multitude. For the Jews he is the physical father and has an influence greater than anybody in the history of the world. For 75 years he was a pagan and worshipped the god of Mesopotamia and had not yet met God. When he met God he was transformed for all the nations of the world. It is ironic for him to be called that name for he has no children yet. His name was changed from Abram to Abraham and exactly what his name means, father of all nations. Abraham was promised that his descendants will be so great just like looking at the stars and not be able to count them. When God gave this promise, he was 99 years old  and Sarah was 90. All he did was trust God. It’s not hard to believe in a God who brought everything out of nothing. Are we going to trust or not? In Gen 18, Abraham was visited by the Lord’s angels. He exercises hospitality to them whereas Sarah laughed to herself when she heard that she’s going to bear a child at her age. And the Lord said to Abraham, why did Sarah laugh? God wants us to trust Him. There are times in our lives when we doubt the promise of God. Or worse, we sometimes laugh at the promises of God. We can be astonished and say how marvelous it is but we shouldn’t laugh. God made this promise and He will fulfill it. We can see that after God made a covenant with Abraham in Gen 15:12, As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram, and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him.  This is a foreshadowing of someone who fell into deep darkness in Good Friday.  Abraham went into deep darkness as this deep sleep descended to Jesus on Good Friday. A soldier pierced His side from which flowed blood and water that fills the world, washes our sins and gives new life thus in the dark sleep a new humanity was born. We, the people of Christ belong to that humanity, a people of hope. There is no doubt that God is able to fulfill His promise thus it is imperative that we keep our part of the covenant, no matter how deep a darkness we may be going through. In doing so we sometimes have to go through our own Good Fridays in order to yield to God's will in our lives, be full of hope and thus become very blessed just like our father Abraham. (Psalm 112:4, Light shines through the darkness for the upright; gracious, compassionate, and righteous)  Abraham is the 1st recipient of God's revelation of Himself to mankind. He is considered as one of the Patriarchs to whom God chose to establish his covenant. Salvation history tells us of God's faithful love and continues to restore and bring back the broken relationship of God and man. It was through Abraham's total surrender to God's will to offer his son Isaac that he foreshadowed the sacrifice of Jesus as the Lamb of God. It is true that God started to reveal Himself to us through Abraham and the ultimate revelation was in Jesus His only begotten Son. The victimhood of Jesus to conquer evil not by slaying evil but by allowing Himself to be killed is the height of God's love. It should always be a treasure embedded in our hearts. Amen. Hallelujah!

Genesis 17:3-9

When Abram prostrated himself, God continued to speak to him: “My covenant with you is this: you are to become the father of a host of nations. No longer shall you be called Abram; your name shall be Abraham, for I am making you the father of a host of nations. I will render you exceedingly fertile; I will make nations of you; kings shall stem from you. I will maintain my covenant with you and your descendants after you throughout the ages as an everlasting pact, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are now staying, the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession; and I will be their God.” God also said to Abraham: “On your part, you and your descendants after you must keep my covenant throughout the ages.”

There is a lot to learn from the life of Abraham especially the part when he kept on with his faith in God. He was already of age when God promised him to be the father of all nations. All we need to keep in mind is that our time will come and all we have to do is just continue to trust God in His goodness and mercy and never let go of our faith. Just imagine what Abraham had to go through. If it were us and not Abraham who had fallen into this kind of fate we could have responded and reacted to this situation differently. Are these words familiar to us? I do not deserve to be treated this way. I did not do anything bad for God to punish me like this, as if God is a tyrant that is ready to strike us with every wrong move. Why me and not the others who are a lot more sinful than I am. And all these kind of things that we say without much thought. If we are to look at the life of Abraham very closely we would discover that he never let go of his faith in God despite the seemingly irrational and hopeless situation he went through. Imagine in his old age when his wife Sarah finally bore him a son God asked him to offer him as a sacrifice which meant losing his son. He remained firm in his faith and continued to trust in the word of the Lord. Abraham was tested and found to be true. In our own lives, we too are called to prove ourselves worthy before the Lord in order for all of the blessings to flow freely without any block or hindrance. We don't expect a mango fruit if we planted a banana tree. It is pretty much the same with our lives. If we strive to live up to the expectations of a child of the Lord by giving Him honor and praise then we will surely be not disappointed with the outcome. For God inhabits the praises of His people. Although we have a tendency to forget or become out of focus since we are surrounded in this world we are in by elements most especially the physical ones that make us more inclined to pursue worldly things. We become sidetracked or worse completely off track of the path where God is leading us. Let us live every single day of our life conscious of the wonderful truth that we are God's people and He has made a covenant with us. Almost everybody knows this famous Christian song from kindergarten, “Father Abraham has many children, some of them are small, some of them are tall, all of them are beautiful...” We remain beautiful as long as we keep God's covenant and remain obedient and faithful to God. He is the reason for everything and the source of all good things. Sometimes morbid thoughts enter into our mind and immediately we'd think that it is always the devil who does it but whether it is true or not this thought could be a wake up call and reminder that in worst case scenarios or life and death situations there is always a God ready to help us at any time. All we have to do is call on Him. It is indeed good advice to always look intently on God and find all the joys waiting for us. There is really no doubt that we need to further explore, know and understand about our faith. In doing so we have to constantly look to the Lord, seek Him and recall His goodness. Jesus' name is undeniably powerful and beyond measure. Its worth is more than all the riches we can gain in this world. There is really nothing we can find even if we search far and wide, high and low, more than what the Lord can offer. We could go on and on with so many options we are confronted with daily in our lives. There is an endless list of "To Do Things" but what comes first and last is always dependent on our priorities. In deciding on our priorities we have to always involve God in all the things happening around us. We would be so glad to discover that as we place Him in the center of our heart, body and soul He never fails in guiding and directing us. If we live by the word of God which is perfect and remains forever then nothing could go wrong. Our hearts will abound with joy and gladness. There is indeed great power in the name of Jesus. He is worthy of all praise and thanksgiving. Every single day we are confronted with so many challenges in life and we have to be always hopeful that the fulfillment of everything that we have been praying for has come. We should believe that whatever delays or setbacks we are encountering serve as lessons to be learned that benefit our spiritual journey with Jesus. There is a need to go through the different seasons throughout the year for there is indeed a time and a season for everything. Thus, we all go through different situations and circumstances in life. Some of them do not make any sense if we fail to acknowledge the power of God moving in it. There are numerous things that we can think, focus and decide on but there’s only one thing I am sure of. We’ve got to acknowledge that despite of it all God’s power remains to be above all things no matter what it may seem to be. We should always keep in mind all the wonderful things He has done for us. The Lord will never forsake nor abandon us. In the midst of all the turmoil we inevitably face in our daily lives may we remain hopeful in the Lord who is Almighty, provides for all means and prevails now and forever. Whenever we experience difficulties in life we tend to question God right away and somehow blame Him for what came upon us. Sometimes we come to a point in our lives when we tend to question the will of God in our lives. I have plans and you have plans but sometimes things do not fall into place and ask why things happened the way it did and not the way we planned and expected. We just need to always remember the marvels the Lord has done and always hold on to it. If we live by the word of God which is perfect and remains forever then nothing could go wrong. Our hearts will abound with joy and gladness as we further explore, know and understand about our faith. In doing so we have to constantly look to the Lord, seek Him, recall His goodness, keep our spirits up and make our hearts rejoice like what today's psalm is telling us about. We may have experienced a situation in our life when we encountered a lot of trials and difficulties. Just when we're about to give up and lose hope, suddenly we came across a particular incident or inspiration that perfectly fits or matches our specific problem which gave us this hope and feeling that God knows exactly what we're going through and promises to see us through it. The Lord is telling us is in today's psalm and assures us that He remembers what He has promised and will surely bring about what He said to us that He would do. If God remembers, so must we. Amen. Hallelujah!

Psalms 105:4-5, 6-7, 8-9

R: The Lord remembers his covenant forever.

4 Look to the LORD in his strength; seek to serve him constantly. 5 Recall the wondrous deeds that he has wrought, his portents, and the judgments he has uttered. (R) 6 You descendants of Abraham, his servants, sons of Jacob, his chosen ones! 7 He, the LORD, is our God; throughout the earth his judgments prevail. (R) 8 He remembers forever his covenant which he made binding for a thousand generations — 9 which he entered into with Abraham and by his oath to Isaac.

All of the Old Testament is a preparation for Christ. Those who were faithful were all looking ahead for salvation. Jesus is the source of salvation that God has prepared for us. As in today’s gospel, Jesus said, “Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.” It was an act of faith for Abraham that he rejoiced which the Jews failed to see. Jesus is the great I AM, which means saving God’s people from their enemies as in Isaiah 45 and in John 8. Jesus said, “I AM.”  The sense of this name, I AM means life, being and existence. He brings us the way out of sin and death. He is life and being. He creates out of nothing. He says that before Abraham came to be I AM. In order to understand this we have to read the gospel of John from the beginning. He is the one who appeared to Abraham and who created everything. He is the Lord God. We are co creators of God as parents. Eve our 1^st mother when she gave birth said, “I have brought forth a man with the help of the Lord” It is a marvelous thing what has happened in our lives as parents. This is a creation of God who allowed us to cooperate with Him. What we have brought forth we have done by cooperating in His decision to bring forth someone to this world who is our equal in dignity, a human person. We can always have hope that out of barrenness God will bring life. We live in a world where life is in such attack. We’re dealing with not just the sin against life where 50 M babies are aborted each year. No war, plague, poverty nor any sickness even cancer or AIDS are taking more life than abortion. We fight not just against the evil of abortion but what we’re confronting is a sin against hope. Abortion is a product of lost hope. People feel that they have no freedom of choice. They do not have freedom or no choice. What they often say is that they do not know how to bring a child in the world, without realizing that the child is already in the world. People often say that we bring a child into the world when it is born. The child in the womb is real and already in the world.  If not, then what world is the child in them in? We should believe that the child fully exist and is already a person. We need to be careful about the way we talk about pregnancy and change about the way we talk about a child in the womb. The child is already in the world so we need not wait for the child to be born before choosing a name. We give it soon after conception as a way of acknowledging the presence of a person since we don‘t know anyone without a name. We need to restore hope, open the door to life and say yes to life. Hope leads to life. Jesus gives us life and hope and transforms the world in the process. We don’t pass from life to death but life through death. Thanks for Jesus’ words in today’s gospel. It tells us to move forward to salvation and keep His word and not see death. This is the core message of the gospel. Obviously we still die but not eternal death. Death is something that we should not be afraid of because it is only our physical bodies that will die if we continue to nourish our soul then we can be assured of being able to stand face to face with God when that day comes. An article said that once we die physically our souls will immediately depart our bodies and run back to our Creator, God who breathed life/soul in our bodies. It is written in Genesis that when God created Adam, He breathed life into it. This explains why some people when they die look as if their catching their breath it's because that is the breath of life that God has given to us and will return to where it came from. Since we are all aware of the fact that God is Almighty, Holy and Immortal, His Divine Presence can blind anyone standing in His Presence. Although Jesus has gifted us eternal salvation we are supposed to decide if we will accept in our lives this gift. Take it or leave it. The same way when we accept gifts from other people, these people can not force us to like their gifts and make use of them, it's all up to us whether we'll keep it, dispose it, or make use of it. Unlike the time of Moses, when only him can stand before God's presence, on our final day here on earth we come face to face with God that is why we are supposed to prepare ourselves for that day when we neither know the day nor the hour. Let us always keep God's Word that we may enjoy the gift of eternal life. The power of His death on the cross is so great that it can forgive sins and bring us to heaven because He is God Incarnate. Amen. Hallelujah!

John 8:51-59

51 Jesus said to the Jews: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.” ...Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad. 57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” 59 So they picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area.