Mon Mar 28, 2022

Today's readings are about a new creation.

The first reading from Isaiah 65 speaks of “new heavens and a new earth.” Isaiah's nation has returned from seventy years of exile in Babylon. Isaiah speaks of restoration beyond anything his people can imagine. There will be joy in Jerusalem; people will live well beyond one hundred years, as they did in the time of Noah's descendants; they will again eat the fruit of vineyards now overgrown or destroyed. This is the language of re-creation and restoration, in which God's blessings will be poured out on a people who have been refined in the furnace of suffering – a people now faithful, obedient and ready to walk as His people and receive what God has promised all along. There is an eschatological (end-of-time) dimension to Isaiah's prophecy here as well. For Christians, this reading also points to the new heaven and new earth of Revelation Chapter 21. Here the bride of Christ, with glorified bodies will reign with the triumphant Lamb in the fullness of His everlasting Kingdom.

Psalm 30 is David's hymn of praise to the God Who has rescued him from defeat, Who “did not let [his] enemies rejoice over [him],” but raised him up and “turned [his] mourning into dancing.” Through his experience of suffering followed by joy, David has learned to place his trust completely in his God, who comes again and again to rescue him from the darkness of his sin, persecution and pain:

“Sing praise to the LORD, you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.
For his anger lasts but a moment; a lifetime, his good will.
At nightfall, weeping enters in, but with the dawn, rejoicing.”

God is continually refining, restoring and blessing us. Obedience and trust are our keys to receiving His blessings. We cannot allow self-condemnation to keep us from believing that God desires to bless us. We who are members of Christ's body through Baptism share in HIS worthiness to receive all that the Father has for us. We are worthy because Christ is worthy. We may not believe in ourselves, but we must believe in Jesus, Who went to the cross with each of us in mind, that we might share in His gift of abundant life.

Today's story of Jesus healing the royal official's son (Jn 4:43-54) is the second of seven “signs” in John's Gospel. The Gospel is often divided into four sections:

- The Prologue, which testifies to Jesus as the eternal Word mad flesh;
- The Book of Signs,*seven miracles or “signs” given so that we might believe in Him as Son of God – set out in a timeline that mirrors the pattern of creation in Genesis;
- The Book of Glory, which narrates Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection;
- The Epilogue, which further witnesses to Jesus as our Risen Saviour.

The official in today's Gospel testifies to his own belief in Jesus as he pleads with the Lord, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus responds to his belief: “You may go; your son will live.” John tells us,

“The man believed what Jesus said to him and left. While the man was on his way back, his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live.. and he and his whole household came to believe. Now this was the second sign Jesus did when he came to Galilee from Judea.”

We are a new creation in Christ through Baptism. God desires to pour out blessings beyond imagining on us and on our families – here in this life and in the life to come.

Jesus, I believe and trust in You. Amen.

Link to readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032822.cfm

* Book of Signs (Wikipedia)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Signs#:~:text=In%20Christian%20scholarship%2C%20the%20Book,miracles%22%2C%20that%20it%20records.