GOD SORROUNDS US

December 5, 2024 – Thursday of the First Week of Advent

Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/120524.cfm)

What kind of storms do you have now? Big storms? Small storms? Few or many storms? Well, these storms in our life may struck us in the forms of crises in our family or marriage life, friendship, with our health, job, business or studies. These can also be in the form of our personal struggles that we carry alone like the guilt that we hide in our hearts, the fears that paralyze us, the trauma that haunt us day and night or the anxiety that we could not escape of.

This Season of Advent, we are reminded that as we wait for the Lord to come and bring us peace, we might also find ourselves troubled and our hearts filled with fear.

Hence, Isaiah proclaims, “Trust in the Lord forever.” As Isaiah brought a joyful hope to the people of his time who were oppressed and exploited by the rich and powerful, and so he does again to us today. Indeed, it is very evident in the Book of Isaiah that God favors the poor, the weak and the powerless. As the prophet pictures out how the Lord shall bring the arrogant, the corrupt and shameless into their own destruction and misery, the Lord shall also bring freedom, life and  salvation to the oppressed.

The Prophet, whose words echo until today point us how the very presence of God becomes our strength. Though we await for God’s arrival but God’s presence can already be felt in the here and now. And it is because God sustains us and God strengthens us.

Consequently, Isaiah powerfully described God as our strong city because God surrounds us. God is beneath us. God is above us. God is beside us. God is before us. God is after us. And God is within us. This requires now, faith in us to fully trust the Lord who is always with us and who is always for us. In trusting the Lord, we shall have peace because God will keep us in peace.

As Isaiah calls us now to faith by trusting God. Jesus also calls us to action. This is what Jesus invites in the Gospel of Matthew. And this means that to believe and to trust in the Lord is not a mere ideology, an idea or a thought and not even a lip-service. Our faith that trusts in the Lord needs action. Thus, Jesus reminds us today, “everyone who listens to my words and acts of them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.” This is an invitation to listen and to act on it, making the Word of God as our way of life.

Indeed, by cherishing the Word of God and translating the word into our life, thoughts and actions, then, we become a wise person, whose foundation is God, our eternal Rock. By loving the Sacred Scripture and receiving the Sacraments, we make ourselves more familiar to God’s presence. As we make ourselves available for God, this will mold us to become persons for others and with others.

Hence, God invites us today to be with others, to allow others to be part of our life. This is how we shall discover the strength, love and support from our friends, families and communities. To trust in the Lord leads us to become confident that the Lord is with us through the people who surround us.

And so, as we will be tossed by the storms these days that we encounter in life, whatever that may be, we now take comfort by trusting the Lord who is with us, through our friends, our family member the very people who love and cherish us and the Church. Hinaut pa.