LORD, LET US SEE YOUR KINDNESS!
2nd Sunday Advent – B
December 7, 2014
LORD, LET US SEE YOUR KINDNESS!
Bible-based epic movies are usually shown right before or
during Lent. The current hit “Exodus: Gods and Kings” is obviously an example,
opening just around the 2nd Sunday of Advent. I agree with
Christianity Today that the movie is somewhat “biblically irreverent,”
something else, which is positive.
But my topic for second Sunday of Advent is not about
Exodus, nor about the cinematographic masterpiece that it actually is, at least
for me, but about a God whom the whole Philippines now addresses with a
plaintive prayer and plea, besieged as it is now by a potentially catastrophic
super-typhoon that is “Hagupit,” that comes just a little a year after “Haiyan”
wrought death and destruction to a wide swath of Central Philippines.
Well over 19 million Filipinos, who will be directly
affected by the typhoon, can well place themselves in the same footing as
Moses, who wrestled with God in more senses than just one in prayer, pleading,
and proactive leadership on behalf of his suffering people. My prayer, like
everyone else right now is simply this: “Lord, let us see your kindness!”
I am one with so many who post hopeful and faith-filled
prayers in social media who basically ask for the same thing Moses asked God on
behalf of his people – deliverance and liberation from slavery, both real and
figurative.
The movie subtly suggests that miracles that were wrought
were all actually natural and naturally explainable events. But the movie also
makes it clear, as the Bible actually does, that those same natural events
happened because of perfect supernatural timing, due to a Divine intervention
that cannot be explained away by facetious and pseudo-scientific argumentation.
I am no scientist. I find it hard even to understand how
come there are three conflicting forecasts about the trajectory of Hagupit all
coming from international reputable weather experts the world over. On that
area, I cannot be of much help to anyone.
But I am a believer. I believe that even if the miracles
wrought in Moses’ times were attributable to mere natural events, I also
believe that the God of nature, the God of creation, and the same God of
redemption can so cause precisely those natural events to happen at the right
time, at the right place, for the right people, and that such supernatural timing is something
that no scientist, no Pharaoh or King, can do on his own.
I call on fellow believers who also belong and who are on
the way to becoming what God has intended us to be, to join the rest of the
community of believers in prayer, and I would like to repeat: “Lord,
let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation.” Moses, like
Isaiah, was called and sent by God to give “comfort to [His] people.” Through
them, “the glory of the Lord [had been]
revealed.” Through chosen individuals, God has impressed upon us all, that
for “a thousand years are just like one
day,” for He, too, is the God of history.
But, more importantly, the story of Moses and the event of
the Exodus, teach us one thing … There is a time for reckoning … There is an
end to suffering, to pain, to earthly happiness and well-being as we know them,
for the “world and all its pleasures, are fast drifting away.” There is an end
to tyrants like Rameses, and definitely an end to political parties whose only
achievement is to fool and hoodwink everyone to believing they are merely
working for the common good, while doing nothing but steal from the very people
they claim to serve.
The movie that is “Exodus: Gods and Kings” teach us
valuable lessons. But the ongoing event that is the unfinished “history of
salvation” teaches us even more … that what we believe and await and long for
will come … And someone like Moses has come who told us that important lesson
we need to take to heart: “Behold, I am
sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way.”
His message was good then; his message is good now: “Prepare
the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.”
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