In the first reading of today we find God speaking to Abraham and he asked him to leave his country which is modern day Iraq to some other place which God will show him. Moreover, God made this promise to Abraham “Look up to heaven and count the stars if you can. Such will be your descendents”. Surely God is exaggerating. How can a person be the father of so many children who would be as numerous as the stars of heaven?
The same thing happened with Moses. God asked Moses at the age of about eighty years of age to go and visit the Pharaoh telling him to let the Jewish people go free. In his time, Egypt was the most powerful nation of the known world. The Pharaoh possessed enormous influence and military might. He was considered as someone who could not be approached by any ordinary human being. And yet, Moses who had spent his previous forty years tending to flocks of sheep for his father in law Jethro; was being asked to simply approach this powerful ruler and to tell him to let go those very people who were sustaining in a major way the economic fabric of his empire. At that time, the Jewish people were involved in many of the important industries of the Egyptian empire. They were significant contributors to the well being of the nation. It would be inconceivable for the Pharaoh to simply let his great business asset simply go to some other place.
Mary, went also through a similar experience. She was told by God, through the message of the Archangel Gabriel to be the mother of the Messiah. It is true that all Jewish women longed that they would bear the much awaited liberation of Israel. This is the reason why those women who could not have children were considered to be cursed or punished by God. They would have been deprived of such a great privilege. Therefore they must have done something wrong in their life and this is God’s way of punishing them. And yet, this young girl, coming from what could be termed socially an insignificant family background was being told that she was the one. Can it be possible?
It is no wonder that at first Abraham, Moses and Mary seriously questioned the possibility that such an invitation really happened. Abraham said to God, “It would be great if I became the father of so many people. But excuse me God, my wife Sarah cannot have children and she is now very old. How could this happen? Can you please explain?” We are all very aware of Moses’ reaction. The Book of Exodus tells us that at least Moses tried to put before God five reasons why he could not see that what God was asking him could really materialize. He told God that the Jewish people would not believe that God really sent him to be the leader. He told him that this venture is full of pitfalls and most of all, he suddenly found out that he could not speak properly because of his stuttering. So Moses comes up with a solution. Don’t send me, send my brother Aaron. After all he is the high priest and he can talk very well and very beautifully.
Mary, was so confused with God’s invitation that her first words when she heard what the Archangel Gabriel had to say were “How could this come about”. I am promised in marriage to Joseph and what would happen if I am found to be pregnant and Joseph had nothing to do with it. God don’t you realize that I can be stoned for this. And what would Joseph think of me. How can I face my parents and can you image what the people of the town would say about me. Surely God, you must realize that this could not happen.
God accepts the normal reaction of our three friends and God acknowledges that by ourselves and with only our human reasoning we can never achieve what He invites us to do. He therefore promised that as this is His work, He will be there all the time to see and to make sure that His plans would succeed. We all know what happened to Abraham. His wife Sarah had a son Isaac and through Isaac we have the Jewish nation. Moreover, Abraham is called by our Church as “our father in faith”. He has truly become the father of as many people as the stars in heaven. Moses achieved his mission to bring his people home to their land. Mary did indeed become the mother of Jesus who is our God and our Savior.
We are also called for something which seems impossible to achieve. As Catholics and believers in Jesus Christ we are asked and invited to do the things that Jesus did, and to do even greater things than he did. This is a promise of Jesus that we find in the gospel of St John Chapter 14 Verse 12. We are called to stand for what Jesus stands for. We are called to live whatever we say and do the teachings and the values of Jesus. This may seem very hard to achieve because it is so opposite to what is the opinion and the way of living of so many people around us. Moreover, there is also the very real possibility that people would attack us bitterly and point fingers at us because of what we believe and because of what we hold as important.
This can result in fear and to the tendency of watering down our values and our beliefs. This could result in the tendency to not wanting to be different from the general populace because it can get pretty lonely and very scary at times. These are normal reactions and feelings because everybody desires to be accepted and patted on the back. There would not be any person who deliberately seeks to be unpopular and who relishes in being ostracized or heavily criticized.
Jesus knows all of this. This is why he promised that He will be with us at every stage of our lives. Let us not back off. Let us be faithful to the way of living and believing that Jesus has shown us. When the going gets tough we know fully well that He is very near. As believers in Jesus Christ we are destined to make a difference in our society when we do the ordinary things in life extraordinarily well.
God Bless.
