Thursday, July 23, 2020

To Grow into Arks

WORD 2day: Friday, 16th week in Ordinary time

July 24, 2020: Jeremiah 3: 14-17; Matthew 13: 18-23


No one shall ask, "where is the Ark", says the Lord. The promise gets embodied when a person begins to build his or her life on such a promise. We are a people who stand on the promises of the Lord.  Right from the Old Testament experience we see that the Lord made promises and the Lord kept them too! The revelation of God in Christ, specially the revelation in the Risen Lord has been, and continues to be, the greatest of all hope giving promises. The Word today reminds us to grow into arks of this promise, in our very own lives! 

When we whole heartedly receive the promises from the Lord with hope, we become the ark, holding out those promises to the rest of our brothers and sisters. Gone is the need to preserve the Ark and to carry it from place to place - that belongs to the OLD testament! The New Testament call, the urgent call today and the call of the people of Resurrection is not to dance around with the Ark but to become the arks ourselves...holding out the promises of the Lord to the world.

Just look around and understand the times: so dark, so uncertain, so painful, so frightening, so helpless and so oppressive. What is going to be the message that I share with others, with those around me, with the world? One that adds to this uncertainty and anguish? Or something that will fill persons and communities with hope and positive thinking? What I have within me is what I would transmit...which means I need to fill myself with the hope giving Word, and grow into an ark of God's promises!

The very presence of some persons fills those around or the situation around with enormous hope. These are truly the Arks of the Promise, who have the Spirit of the Risen Lord within them, holding it out to everyone. Can I grow to be one among those?