Bible
Study: Isaiah 35:4-7.
/ James 2:1-5. / Mark 7:31-37.
If we were
to summarize today’s first reading in a song, it would be like this: “God will
make a way where there seems to be no way, he works in ways we cannot see, he
would be our God, he would be our God.”
Just take
every item in this first reading one after the other and you will realize that
for every seemingly unfortunate situation or problem, God is right there to do
the very opposite. For eyes that are blind, he will OPEN. For deaf ears, he
will CLEAR. For those crippled, God will make them LEAP like a stag. For mute
tongues, they will SING. For those passing through deserts in life, God will
provide STREAMS. Even rivers will come forward from impossible places. Out of
sand, POOLS will arise. From thirsty ground, there would be SPRINGS of water.
On this
first Sunday of the first of the ember-months this year, I pray for you that
this prophesy of Isaiah shall come to pass in your life. In any aspect of life,
where you are experiencing, dryness, blindness, deafness, dumbness, desert, God
will turn your story to glory. Amen.
FOR GOD,
NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE.
Isaiah’s
message is straightforward. God can do all things, he can turn that situation
around for you completely. The God who made the universe and all things in existence,
the God who spoke and it came to be, the God who formed you in your mother’s
womb and knew your name before you were born, this God is not too small to
handle that problem.
Are you in
church today and scared? Is there something that really frightens you? Has someone
or a situation in your life threatened to deal with you? Are you afraid? Today’s
message is for you. Listen again. “Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
"BE STRONG, FEAR NOT! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the
recompense of God. He will come and save you.” Isaiah 35:4.
Who has
raised forth his finger to threaten you? Isaiah says, don’t worry, don’t try to
fight back on your own, just be strong; leave the battle for God. Yes, leave
vengeance for God. Children of God, do not go about running from pillar to post
as if you serve a God who is asleep, just commit your trouble to God and allow
him act.
RELAX, LET
GOD FIGHT FOR YOU.
Have you
been unjustly treated? Has someone taken that which belongs to you? Isaiah
says, relax, God is coming. God is coming with his recompense in hand. The word
recompense means “to make amends, for loss or harm suffered or simply put, to
compensate.” Dear friend, God is coming his recompense is with him, he will not
leave you empty, he will do something, yes, God is coming to save you.
Indeed,
the saying is true that you only know when you have prayed well, if you no
longer feel the same way about your situation when you get up from prayer. The meaning
of this is that, if after spending time praying, you still feel uneasy,
unhappy, moody or worried, it means you are not sure if you spoke to God or you
spoke to yourself. Today, dear friends in Christ, God wants us to renew our
trust and confidence in him.
The healing
of the deaf and dumb man in today’s Gospel passage is one of many examples that
show God’s deep seated care and concern for us his children. At the end of the
miracle, people started saying about Jesus, “He has done all things well…” This
line reminds us of what happened in Genesis 1: 31. After God had created everything,
he said: it is good. Yes, it is good and he who saw everything as good from the
beginning has done all things well.
SHOW NO
PARTIALITY.
Our second
reading which picks up from that of last Sunday is a continuation of the
practical theology of James which defines pure religion as that which reaches
out to the poor and needy. As James said to us last Sunday, let us not deceive
ourselves, let us not simply be hearers only but doers.
And one of
the ways we deceive ourselves is by showing partiality, giving people respect
according to their pocket. “For if a man with gold rings and in fine clothing
comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and
you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, "Have a
seat here, please," while you say to the poor man, "Stand there,"
or, "Sit at my feet," have you not made distinctions among
yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? James 2:2-4.
James is
not merely talking to our church wardens only. No, that would be a very narrow
interpretation. What James says about the distinction we draw between persons
applies to virtually every aspect of life. You go to the bank for instance and
join a very long queue, then all of a sudden, one so called “big man” steps in
and the branch manager himself gets up to attend to him sharply while you are
still there.
We see
this everywhere, money has become the criteria for judging the worth of human
beings. If you do not have it, you are a no-body. And because of this, people
are prepared to do just about anything on earth to get this money, they want to
be rich just so that people would regard them as human beings. This is why
money has become a god. But my dear friends there is actually something better
than money.
WHAT IS
BETTER THAN MONEY?
One upon a
time, a poor beggar was sitting by a junction begging for alms in his usual
fashion. A man walked up to him and gave him a N50 note, then as he was about
to turn, he noticed a woman dropping a fat bundle of N1000 notes inside the
beggar’s plate. Both he and the beggar were so startled, they had never seen
anything like that before. The beggar jumped up in excitement and thanked the
woman profusely saying that would be the end of his day of begging. He was so
happy and couldn’t stop dancing.
The man
who had just given this beggar N50 now decided to walk up to him and using the
same posture as he had always seen the beggar started begging from the beggar.
Guess what happened? The beggar looked at this man straight in the eye and
handed over to him all the money on him including the fat bundle (N500,000).
And he started walking away.
But then,
this man couldn’t hold himself anymore, so he ran towards the beggar and said:
“Sir, please take your money. I don’t want it. Please give me that which is
inside you that made you release this money to me just like that.”
The only
way we can escape from the trap of money becoming a god for us is by refusing
to respect people only on the basis of how rich they are. If we learn to treat
people as human beings created equally in the image of God, we would cease to
be controlled by it.
Money
never satisfies, the more you get it, more you need it and the more you need
it, the more you become its slave and in fact, the poorer you become. Never
become so poor that all you have is money, this is the worst form of poverty
that exists. If money is the only thing we have, then we are most to be pitied.
CONCLUSION.
No matter what
we may be experiencing in life, let us never forget that we serve a God who
truly cares about us. He knows what we want even before we ask and he truly
supplies our needs. When we do not have enough money as we crave, it is not
because God is not capable to provide such for us, it is rather because he
wants us to understand that money is not the essence of life and that we would
be seriously mistaken if we begin to distinguish persons according to the
amount of money they have. There is something better than money, and that which
is better than money is what God wants us to have.
Let us
pray:
Lord
Jesus, teach me to love you above everything else and to love my neighbour as
myself. Amen.
Good evening.
Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. Happy Sunday and may
the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.
Amen.
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