A promise pondered

 

Psalm 66 is one of joy and celebration, proposing vigorous celebration and worship.  No sitting quietly and reverently.  It’s a call for “whooping it up”.  A call for exultation. The psalm is saying that we should be so grateful to God that our worship is heartfelt and exuberant.  “Shout joyfully to God”. 

In the book of Acts, Saul (Paul) was trying to persecute the young Church, dragging men and women from their homes and handing them over for imprisonment.  Philip went to Samaria and proclaimed Christ to them exorcising demons and curing crippled people resulting in great joy.  Instead of cowering in fear Philip boldly proclaimed Christ and healed them (Acts 8:1-8).

The Gospel of John proclaims to us that Jesus “is the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst” (John 6:35-40).

After just a few minutes of reflection on these Scripture readings, I realized that each of them puts emphasis on ideas that could be expressed with words beginning with the letter P –words like "persecution" and "perseverance."  Quite quickly a flood of other "P" words came to mind: patience, and prayer and praise, proclamation and possession and petition.  Even in the phrase from Acts, "crippled people," the letter stands out.

And all of these words are as relevant today as they were two millennia ago.  Around the world (and even here in the USA) there are those who are persecuted as the early Christians were persecuted, because of their race, their religion, their ethnicity, their ideas or poverty.  Our patience is tested by intractable wars, and by violence in our cities and towns, by a pandemic and natural disasters.  On a positive note, the glorious colors, smells and sounds of spring are prompting our praise of the Creator of all the natural wonders.  Whether we suffer or celebrate, we have reasons for prayer.

But the P word that strikes me most right now as I reflect on these passages is "promise."  In the Gospel Jesus promises us eternal life.  Now all of us make promises.  The insincere, whether out of simple greed or lust or egregious malevolence, may make promises they don’t intend to keep.  Most of us try to keep our promises, aware, as in the famous words of Robert Frost's poem, that we "have miles to go" before we sleep.  But every so often even the best of us don’t live up to our promises, breaking them because of forgetfulness, or lack of time or energy, or unexpected and justifiable changes in our priorities.  Whether parents or children, bosses or employees, teachers or students, helpers or those being helped, so often we don’t keep our word.

If we believe, however, in the perfect goodness of Jesus Christ; if we proceed from that starting point of our Faith that is the divinity of Christ and the infinite love that is God, we may surely find that the essence of these passages is the marvelous promise by Jesus the Redeemer.  He offers eternal life, and He won’t withdraw the offer.  As did those persecuted twenty centuries ago, we together acknowledge one who is not only a model but a promise-maker.  He who never sinned will never break His word.  This spring, in the month of Easter, we know He’ll keep his promise.