The Feast of the Tabernacles

MORNING PRAISE
March 27, 2020
Friday of the Fourth Week in Lent
The Feast of the Tabernacles | John 7:1-2,10,25-30

PERSONAL REFLECTION         

Sometimes I wonder if Jesus had someone who would check on Him from time to time – someone who knew Him enough to sense if something was wrong with Him; if there is something more to His silence; and recognize even the subtlest tinge of pain behind His smile. I would wonder if this person knew Jesus well enough to detect if He was still okay in the midst of His tiring ministry. I would wonder if this person would readily know when to offer Jesus a pat on the back, and when instead to offer a shoulder for Jesus to rest His head upon when things got particularly rough and draining.

I wonder because I imagine that by human standards, Jesus’ life was one that was tiring, frustrating, stressful, and anxiety-inducing. I can only imagine how it must have felt like to devote yourself to healing people and yet be called all sorts of things for it. I can only imagine how it must have felt to offer people salvation and God’s message of love, and be rejected for it. In today’s reading, I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been for Jesus to hear people doubt His identity as messiah, no matter how he tried to make them believe. As if that were not enough, Jesus knew that eventually, He will have to suffer and die, not when He wanted to or when He was ready, but at God’s appointed time.

Our human lives nowadays are so much like Jesus’ experience in this respect. We live at a time of frustration, stress, and anxiety as we wait powerlessly for God’s appointed time for the end of this pandemic. In the meantime we helplessly witness unsatisfactory interventions being taken by the government, which highlights not just the incompetence of our elected officials, but more so their utter disrespect for the dignity of the lives of their constituents. We cry “foul” at the injustice and double standards, and try to awaken those who are disadvantaged, only to be rejected and shamed by their blind submission to those who are preying on their naiveté. And so we find comfort in each other’s company – we try to cut down the toxicity: we unfollow and unfriend; choosing only to stick to those whose sentiments echoes our own.

There’s something to be learned in how Jesus handled his ordeal. He stuck to His ministry to the very end. He was not disheartened. He did not sever ties. He kept at it, no matter how difficult His ministry became and even if God’s appointed time for His suffering and death seemed uncertain.  

And so the grace I would like to beg for today is this: that I may be like Jesus who remained devoted to His ministry no matter how difficult and unsettling the circumstances were: to stay in the moment and persevere in trusting the Lord even if the tides are against us. And in these times when Jesus seems to be too quiet, I pray that I may understand His silence well enough so that if needed, I may be the one to ask Him: “You’re so quiet, are you okay? Here, rest Your head on my shoulder. I have rested mine on Your shoulder long enough.”  

Amen.

   

Thought for the Day        

“The spiritual rest, which God particularly intends in this Commandment, is this: that we not only cease from our labor and trade, but much more, that we let God alone work in us and that we do nothing of our own with all our powers.” – Martin Luther