Word to the Wise
Thursday, December 3, 2009 - St. Francis Xavier, S.J. - Missionary
[Isaiah 26:1-6 and Matthew 7:21, 24-27]Trust in the Lord forever! For the Lord is an eternal rock. [Isaiah] Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house of rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock.[Matthew]
Every once in awhile the evening newscast will treat us to some footage of a big flood occurring somewhere in the world, and there is almost always a sequence showing a house falling into the flood waters. One cannot help but wonder, also, if this image represented something recent in Jesus' own time. There had to have been some common understanding of the description. Had there been a recent flood in the area? Be that as it may, the promise in Isaiah about God as an eternal rock would be easy to relate to in Israel. There is rock everywhere! Another aspect of the same image that might help us in our own time is the old commercial jingle for an insurance company, "Get a piece of the rock!" The hope expressed in Isaiah and in the Gospel of Matthew is not a "pie in the sky, by and by" thing. It is a solid hope that can anchor us in very difficult times. For some this is a more personal thing, but for others it may be a collective vision, as expressed in the civil rights hymn, "We shall overcome!" In the season of Advent, the focus on hope is an important one. For some it is simply the hope they can emotionally or financially survive the "season." For others, it is the hope that a current crisis will be resolved: illness, loss of job, death in the family, feud in the family or with a friend. Those are important concerns but the hope is really in the one who will sustain us through all of those concerns. He is Jesus of Nazareth. We are awaiting his birth: yesterday, today and tomorrow! He is the Rock of Ages. AMEN
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