Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
I continue to be concerned and disturbed by many things that are going on in the world today. The economy continues to improve, but many people remain unemployed. Wars continue to rage and innocent people get caught in the crossfire. It is beginning to feel as though the only news is bad news. At times like these I find myself tempted to despair about the world. What good can possibly come to people in a world like this? Yet I realize that this is wrong. There is still hope for the world. And I believe that this hope is the very work of God in our midst.
As I reflect on the scripture readings for today, I find that they have something important to say about the difference between hope and despair. The first reading for today paints a picture of people who are in despair. The Israelites have been wandering around in the desert for years, and then they experience another hardship. This time they are being bitten by poisonous snakes. And yet, the Lord sends them a way of escaping the snakes. Anyone who has been bitten will be healed if they simply look at Moses’ staff. There is still hope.
Jesus’ words in the gospel reading continue this theme. It is seems to me that one thing Jesus is saying is that the only way that we can fail is if we do not believe or do not continue to believe in him. Then we have given up hope. And in doing so we have given up even before we have begun.
Both readings suggest that there are two responses to our experience of hardship and to our recognition that the world is not as good as it should be. One response is despair. We may conclude that the situation in which we find ourselves is hopeless, that there is nothing that can be done to improve it. We may feel that we are stuck with the way things are, and that the world is the way it is and cannot be changed. The other response is that we can have hope that God has given us and will continue to give us what we need to overcome the darkness that we all too often see in our lives and the lives of others around us.
Many of the scriptures we have encountered this Lent seem to be intended to remind us that such hope in God’s saving power is not irrational or misguided. In fact, it is this very hope that makes sense of our sacrifice in these forty days of Lent. This penitential time only makes sense when we keep in mind the possibility of our redemption through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. During Lent, we are called on not just to pay attention to our own spiritual life but also to be on the lookout for ways that we positively impact the lives of people around us. God promises to help us with this. The only way to fail is to give up hope before we even begin.
In the next week, then, as we prepare to commemorate Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection, my prayer is that each of us will take the steps needed to hope in God and in God’s promises to us.
Joel Schickel