4th Sunday of Easter-Year C
Act 13:14, 43-52
Ps. 100
Rev. 7:14-17
Jn. 10:27-30
With God, things don’t fall apart; they
fall in place
Beloved in Christ, last year
I was in Florida for a conference. I stayed in a hotel, which was very close to
a Baptist Church. After Mass, I decided to take a nap in the afternoon but the
sound of the music and prayers from the Church was so loud that I could not
sleep. So I decided I would rather go and join them to worship if they would
not allow me to sleep :-).
After the worship, which lasted about two and half hours, I decided to
introduce myself to the pastor and learn more about his church. He shared some
inspiring story with me. He told me he spent 7 years in prison for a crime that
he did not commit. The first three years he was very angry and frustrated with
God for allowing this to happen to him; but at a point in time he decided to
ask God “what do you want to do with me for bringing me here?” He did not
receive any immediate answers but it was in prison that he received the desire
to become a pastor. When he came out of prison he joined a church and after 15
years became the head pastor. For the past 10 years he has help about 300 drug
addicts to overcome their problems and turn their lives over to Christ. Four of
them have also become pastors. What really surprised me was when he said the
best thing that has ever happened to him was the time he spent in prison. My
conversation with this pastor reminded me of what one philosopher by name Soren
Kierkegard once said that we must live our lives looking forward; but we can
only understand our lives looking backward.
Our scriptural readings
today remind us that when you use a Christian perspective to look at events of
your life, you come to realize that with God things don’t fall apart; they fall
in place. That is how St. Paul and
Barnabas understood the suffering and persecution they suffered for the sake of
the Gentile. It was not because they had
committed any sin or made any bad decision in their lives; it was for the sake
of others; their suffering was just so that the Gentiles will come to realize
that they are also the Children of God. St. John, in the second reading,
reminds us that leading others to the kingdom can at times be as difficult as
washing a rode white in blood. Can you imagine that? But when it comes to the
salvation of souls, every suffering is worth it. The good news is that Jesus
assures as in the gospel that he will not allow us to be crushed. He will
always be there to make sure that things that seem to be falling apart fall in
place.
Beloved, the readings
teach us that life is not so much about what we can do for God, but rather what
we allow God to do with us. We all go through situations in our lives that
humanly speaking might not make any sense to us. But God always has a bigger
picture so do interpret your suffering only in relation to your life. Place it
in the bigger picture of salvation history; and even if it does not make sense
now, lets live our lives looking forward. Someday when we look backward, we
will come to understand that things were not falling apart; they were falling
in place.
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