Why are You Afraid?
The
readings for this weekend tell us that God does not delight in death of the living because we were created for incorruption. And
as the psalm says, even those who have died, God extends a hand to draw them out
of Sheol or the place of death. All of this is graphically illustrated when
Jesus dismisses the crowd who are making a commotion and weeping, and raises a
12 year old girl from the dead.
To
understand these three readings we must consider them in light of what we have
learned from scripture since Easter, where Jesus himself
was raised from the dead by God, his Father. As Saint Paul would later write. “Where
O death is your sting now?”( 1 Cor. 15.5)
So what have we
heard. What lessons were contained in the scripture
passages we read since Easter? As you will recall, immediately after a
series of gospels confirm Jesus’ resurrection by reporting his appearances
to his disciples, the Church sets aside four Sundays, which invites us to reflect
on some pretty heavy duty theology about Jesus’ identity: Ascension Sunday,
Trinity Sunday, Pentecost, Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.
If we look beyond
the theology that scholars spend time analyzing,
we see Jesus' essential message to us, which is as follows: Jesus promised before he ascended back to heaven,
“I will be with you always.” Then he gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit, which
we all receive in baptism and confirmation,
and finally the gift of his incorruptible physical presence that we receive
in the Eucharist. As you can see, Jesus did not
leave us alone to fend for ourselves.
Since
there is a chance we might overlook this message that Jesus is with us always,
the three Sundays, culminating with today’s scripture passages, give us three practical illustrations to help see how
to live that knowledge.
This
recent cycle of readings, which began on the Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time, recalls the
parable of the mustard seed. Here we can hear the words of Saint Paul who explained
to the people in Corinth, now that you excel in
faith, you must also excel in imitating Jesus, who became poor so that by
his poverty we might be rich. In other words, the faith given to us in baptism will
grow into something exceptional only if we imitate Jesus, who gives himself fully to
us.
How we give growth
to the mustard seed is illustrated in the Mark's gospel from the Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time. In this passage Jesus and his disciples are in a boat
and when a windstorm came up threatening their lives, his disciples call on Jesus to
save them. Jesus responds to them by
asking: “Why are you afraid?” It is a question that is directed to all future
generations because Jesus wants everyone to know that if I am with you always, there is nothing to fear. An idea that moved Saint Pope
John Paul II to repeat often throughout his pontificate: "Be not afraid for the Lord is with us."
Then today, when
Jesus’ raises this young girl from death, he
is illustrating how his resurrection is not a single incident in history, but
that God who does not delight in death, will raise up from the dead all who believe
in him.
As you can see
when we view these readings in light of Easter
and the scripture passages that follow, we are
told there is never any reason to lose hope or panic. Jesus never does. Jesus
is with us. We may at times think he is asleep, but he is with us through the
rough times and dark passages and even in those days of great loss.
Knowing Jesus is
with us always is the cornerstone of our faith, but it only excels when we express our faith by choosing
to imitate Jesus by helping others
from our abundance and gifts so that they never have to fear when trouble and
even death threatens them.
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