Bible
Study: Isaiah 26, 1 to 6. And Matthew 7, 21 to 27.
Going
through the scriptures, we see an abundance of places where God is described as
Rock. In the book of Deuteronomy, we come across Moses, a man who saw God’s
power displayed before his very eyes in delivering a whole nation from the
hands of captivity. He had this to say about God: “The Rock, his work is
perfect; for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without
iniquity, just and right is he.” Deuteronomy 32, 4.
Hannah was
barren for years to the extent that she could no longer hold her sorrow
anymore, she came to the temple to cry, he lips were moving but no sound came
from her throat. God heard her prayers eventually and gave her the joy of
carrying her own child who would eventually become one of Israel’s greatest prophet,
Samuel. In her song of Thanksgiving, Hannah sang: “There is none holy like the
LORD, there is none besides thee; there is no rock like our God.” 1st
Samuel 2, 2.
After God
delivered David from the hands of all his enemies and from the hands of Saul,
David the great musician and composer could not hide his joy and he sang: “For
who is God, but the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God? This God is my
strong refuge, and has made my way safe.” 2 Samuel 22, 32 to 33. In Psalm 18,
verse 2 we read: “The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my
God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation,
my stronghold.” Again in Psalm 62, verse 7, we read: “On God rests my
deliverance and my honour; my mighty rock, my refuge is God.”
And as
Isaiah prophesies today, “Trust in the LORD for ever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting
rock. For he has brought low the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He
lays it low, lays it low to the ground, casts it to the dust.” Isaiah 26, 4 to 5.
A rock is
a symbol of strength and protection. In times of war, a rock usually served as
a hiding place and because of its height, one could easily see the enemy
approaching long before his arrival such that any city set on a rock was almost
impossible to capture and defeat. Hence, when scriptures speak of God as a rock,
the idea is to communicate a strong message that only in God can man find
absolute SECURITY. And truly, nothing else in this world brings us security;
our money, our intelligence, our armed forces, our police, our connection and
so on are nothing but failures compared to God.
However it
is not enough to say God is my Rock, my refuge, my security and then relax and
sleep. The very life you live must be one of keeping the words of God. In fact,
the protection you enjoy from God comes only when your life is lived in compliance
with the mind of God. This is what Jesus explains in today’s Gospel passage,
when he said: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will
be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and
the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not
fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these
words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his
house upon the sand; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew
and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it.” Matthew
7, 24 to 27.
Satan
knows how powerless he becomes each time we keep God’s commandments and pattern
our lives according to the mind of God as we read in the Scriptures. He knows
that when we live good lives, we become impenetrable and stable no matter the
storms we encounter, that is why he never stops trying to tempt us to sin. And
beneath each temptation Satan brings, there is false offer of security. For
instance, he told Eve, “…when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you
will be like God…”Genesis 3, verse 5. Consider each of the temptations of Jesus
after his forty days fast, you will see that Satan was trying to offer Jesus
some security with food (turn stones to bread), with worldly power (bow down to
me and I will give you all the kingdoms of the earth), with public display of prowess
(throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple). Dear friends, every time,
we are we are tempted, let us be wise and realise that nothing in this world is
worth providing us that security we crave other than God, not even all the
money in the world, not even the best food or the highest degree of bodily appetites.
Only in God is our security.
This was
the message that St. Francis Xavier preached so vigorously to lengths and
breaths of the whole world until his death. In St. Francis, we celebrate a missionary
par excellence. From Venice, where he was ordained a priest in 1537, Francis
Xavier went on to Lisbon and from there sailed to the East Indies, landing at
Goa, on the west coast of India. For the next 10 years he laboured to bring the
faith to such widely scattered peoples as the Hindus, the Malayans and the
Japanese. He spent much of that time in India, and served as provincial of the
newly established Jesuit province of India. Wherever he went, he lived with the
poorest people, sharing their food and rough accommodations. He spent countless
hours ministering to the sick and the poor, particularly to lepers. Very often
he had no time to sleep or even to say his breviary but, as we know from his
letters, he was filled always with joy. Francis went through the islands of
Malaysia, then up to Japan. He learned enough Japanese to preach to simple
folk, to instruct and to baptize, and to establish missions for those who were
to follow him.
It is only
when we are able to see that God is our security that we would be able to heed
the words of Jesus who said “go and preach to all nations.” (Matthew 28, 19).
Our preaching is not necessarily on distant shores but to our families, our
children, our husband or wife, our co-workers. And we are called to preach not
with words, but by our everyday lives.
St.
Francis Xavier is one of the saints of the catholic church whose body did not
decay but remained completely incorrupt even after his death. Find out more by
clicking this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_egxtjza9o.
Let us
Pray:
Lord
Jesus, you are my Rock, may my life be lived under your divine protection and
may I never try to see security from any human being or material possession. Help
me to see the false offer of security within my temptations and grace to
overcome victoriously. Amen.
Good morning.
Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you.
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