Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter

Scripture Readings 

Like many this week, I have been astounded and relieved and overjoyed at the freedom for the three women freed from captivity in Cleveland.  Also like many, I have asked the question: "How can this be?  How can these things have remained hidden?"  Many of the neighbors have commented on frustration with themselves, wondering if there was something - anything - that might have given a clue.  And for most of them, there just wasn't anything at all, but it doesn't stop them, or any of us, from wondering at moments like this: "Could I have done something differently?"

Part of the tragedy of being human is exactly that we're limited in our abilities to see things, know things, do things.  For example, we don't see the abnormal mole, or the turning car, until it is too late and cancer has spread, or a car accident has happened.  There are many more minor everyday occurrences like this.

But part of what these courageous women witness to is that, on the other hand, it is possible to keep going despite our limitations.  It is possible to respond to the things we DO know about, despite our limitations.  It is possible that things kept hidden will be revealed.
The gospel reading (John 16:20-23) discusses how limited life might seem for the Christians when Jesus ascends into heaven.  They will be weeping and mourning while the rest of the world seems oblivious to their pain. The scripture seems to suggest that the pain is due to the fact that Jesus has gone away from them.  Yet the scripture also goes a bit deeper than that: the analogy of the woman in anguish due to childbirth suggests that the disciples’ own anguish might come not only from missing Jesus, but also from the “labor” that they do in Jesus’ name.  In the midst of labor, the woman does not experience the joy of holding the child, only knows the difficult and painful work of getting the child into the world.  That joy is hidden from her.

Christians do the difficult work of loving our neighbors (and our enemies), witnessing to the gospel in a world where many people see Jesus as hidden (or even totally absent).  Of course we would want to see some sign that our labor is doing something, anything – but unfortunately, today’s reading speaks largely of the pain and grief of those labors while in the midst of them, not the joy of seeing the results. Two thousand years later, Christians still hope and pray and do this work, even though it looks like a futile effort to non-Christians.  Sometimes, Christians themselves give up, not seeing the fruit of any work they do.

Every once in a while, though, God reveals a glimmer of light.  In today's first reading (Acts 18:9-18) Paul receives a vision that gives that glimmer - a message of hope and an exhortation to have courage.  While many Christians have been arrested for preaching Jesus Christ, here, incredibly, the Roman officials do not arrest Paul and the others.  

And those Christians keep on going, despite their limited knowledge and limitations and despite the fact that whatever the future has in store for them is hidden knowledge.  

Today, let us give thanks for all the glimmers of hope in our lives, and pray for light to shine in all the hidden parts of our lives.

- Jana M. Bennett