Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 395

But Moses answered the people,

“Fear not! Stand your ground,
and you will see the victory the LORD will win for you today.
These Egyptians whom you see today you will never see again.
The LORD himself will fight for you; you have only to keep still.”

 

Mighty Work  and its synonyms appear often in the Old and New Testaments. The original is the parting of the Red Sea, the escape of the Hebrew slaves, and the annihilation of Pharaoh and his army.

A Mighty Deed is always God’s free and generous demonstration of supreme authority. If there are other gods, none can compare to our God. He rules unchallenged; his gift is gracious; his choice of the Hebrews first, and then us, as his elect can only be explained as his choice. We have no peculiar trait that would make our election necessary, obligatory, or inevitable. He might have selected anyone; he did choose the descendants of Abraham, whose claim to fame was, “a wandering Aramaean.”

Throughout the history of Israel into the age of the New Testament, the greatest work of all – greater than the Red Sea incident – is the Resurrection of Jesus. More than the resuscitation of a corpse, this miracle shows us who Jesus is, the Son of God and coequal with the Father. It is a final and ultimate Mighty Deed; nothing greater will ever happen.

And then we find many other astonishing works in the Old and New Testament, from the Deluge and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah to the many healings at the hands of the apostles, and the beautiful death of Christian martyrs. Given the bewildered cowardice of the twelve as we saw in the gospels, we can only be amazed at their wisdom and courage following Pentecost. First they are scattered like sheep, and then they are bound together in an unbreakable, irresistible communion.

In this 21^st century, many self-described Christians seem jaded by the wonders of technology. Human beings have leveled mountains and filled valleys; they build islands, even floating islands. They regard the Biblical wonders as mythological – which they are – and therefore unreal, which they are not. They are mythological in the sense that their deep meaning is inexhaustible; they are real in the sense that God’s authority remains perfect, free, and supreme. We might take jet travel, the Internet, and cell phones for granted because they are no longer astonishing, but we should practice amazement at God's mighty deeds, and never permit ourselves to take them for granted. 

As “People of the Book we find our identity in our faith with its liturgy, scripture, and tradition. Together we study the wonderful works of God in the scriptures, the lives of the martyrs and saints. And then in private we share with our family and closest friends the miracles of our personal life. Many of us have been delivered from catastrophe by God's intervention. And all of us have been saved from worse tragedies we see among our neighbors, colleagues, and fellow citizens. Faith reveals mysteries to us which do not appear to the uninitiated. Where some see good luck, we see God’s mercy; where some see things “stranger than science,” we see God's powerful hand and outstretched arm.

The 21^st century challenges us to practice our religion as we share communion with God’s faithful people from Abraham and Sarah to the present day. We sing from their songbook, the one hundred and fifty psalms that were sung in Solomon’s Temple. We grieve over the destruction of Jerusalem and the death of Jesus; we rejoice in the restoration of the Holy City and the Pentecost coming of the Holy Spirit. We hope where the world despairs for the LORD’s mighty works to reveal Emmanuel, God with us.