4 July 2016 - different hope

[ Today's Readings ]

She said to herself, “If only I can touch his cloak, I shall be cured.”

This woman suffered hemorrhages for twelve years. It is amazing to see her faith after all that time. The natural tendency would be toward despair and toward hopelessness. But in Jesus the woman senses something that allows her to hope again. She senses one who can finally make a difference where treatments and physicians failed.

So too for us. Jesus wants to lead us into the desert so we can respond as though in the days of our youth, as though we've never been hurt before, when we still remember how to hope. The things which imprison us may be physical. There are certain spiritual things with which we need help. There are idols that we have been unable to cast down from our hearts. There are still things to which we say "My baal" even though we know we ought not. The status quo seems like all for which we can hope at this point. We've tried to change and still the idols and the sickness remains.

I will lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart.

Jesus draws us away from distraction toward the one voice which has the power to actually transform. He does not just call. He allures. He draws us. He romances us little by little with the goodness, truth, and beauty that exist perfectly only in God. The little fragments and pieces of these things which we find elsewhere sometimes lead to idol worship. They sometimes lead to hoping in created things too much. We hope in them and then are disappointed. We forget how to hope at all.

I will lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart.

Let us listen to Jesus speak to us today. He speaks of hope renewed. He says that no matter how many times we have failed before, now matter how many times our hopes have failed us, he himself will never fail because love never fails (see First Corinthians 13:8) and God is love (see First John 4:8).

We think the problem is hopeless. But for Jesus nothing is hopeless.

When the crowd was put out, he came and took her by the hand,
and the little girl arose.
And news of this spread throughout all that land.

Let us touch his cloak and here his voice. Let us take his hand as he raises us up. He is gracious and merciful. Let us bless him every day and joyfully sing of his justice. Every other supposed hope is partial and temporary. Only Jesus makes the difference that lasts forever.

I will espouse you to me forever:
I will espouse you in right and in justice,
in love and in mercy;
I will espouse you in fidelity,
and you shall know the LORD.