2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14 / 2 Thess 2:16 – 3:5 / Luke 20:27-38
If we are to around the front entrance of the church and if we bother to look up, we will see something odd, something that shouldn’t be there.
Everything that needs to be there is there, but in that beautiful and majestic façade, there is something that disturbs the view.
Because up there on the roof, we see something growing. Call it weeds, call it wild plants, or whatever they are called, those wild plants present two difficult questions.
Just how did they grow up there? No one planted them there; they just grew from “don’t-know-what”.
And just how did they keep growing? Up there is just concrete. There is no soil. So where did those wild plants get the stuff to keep growing?
And someone can tell me that she thought we put some plants up there to decorate the roof!
But something needs to be done and something is going to be done about those plants up there. We cannot let those plants keep growing into bushes.
Talking about bushes, the gospel mentioned something about a bush and it is connected with Moses. We will remember that episode in the Book of Exodus about Moses and the burning bush.
For Moses, that encounter with the burning bush was just the beginning of a very dramatic mission of leading God’s people out of slavery from Egypt.
One of the highlights of that mission was the parting of the Red Sea, where the Israelites crossed dry-footed but the Egyptian army perished when the waters closed in on them.
That scene is retold in art and in movies but of course there are people who are skeptical about it.
A boy was reading the Bible and his uncle came along and asked what was so interesting in there. "Hey uncle," said the boy in return with a bright laugh, "Don't you have any idea what God is able to do? I just read that God opened up the waves of the Red Sea and led the whole nation of Israel right through the middle."
The enlightened man laughed lightly, sat down next to the boy and began to try to open his eyes to the "realities" of the miracles of the Bible. "That can all be very easily explained. Modern scholarship has shown that the Red Sea in that area was only 10-inches deep at that time. It was no problem for the Israelites to wade across."
The boy was stumped. His eyes wandered from the man back to the Bible that was lying open in his lap. The man, content that he had enlightened a poor, naive young boy to the finer points of scientific insight, turned to go. Scarcely had he taken two steps when the boy began to praise God loudly.
The man turned to ask the reason for this unexpected reaction from the boy. "Wow!" Exclaimed the boy happily, "God is greater than I thought! Not only did He lead the whole nation of Israel through the Red Sea, He topped it off by drowning the whole Egyptian army in just 10 inches of water. Wow!”
So for those who believe, no explanation is necessary. But for those who don’t believe, no explanation is possible.
And for us who believe in the resurrection, Jesus has this to tell us – God is God, not of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all men are in fact alive.
And for us who believe that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life, St. Paul has this to tell us in the 2nd reading: May our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father who has given us His love and, through His grace, such inexhaustible comfort and such sure hope, comfort you and strengthen you in everything good that you do and say.
The God that we believe in, is a living God and the God of the living, and in God we find comfort and hope for our lives. The Lord is faithful and He will give us strength and guard us from the evil one.
During World War II, a US marine was separated from his unit on a Pacific Island. The fighting had been intense, and in the smoke and the crossfire he had lost touch with his comrades.
Alone in the jungle, he could hear enemy soldiers coming in his direction. Scrambling for cover, he found his way up a high ridge to several small caves in the rock. Quickly he crawled inside one of the caves. Although safe for the moment, he realized that once the enemy soldiers looking for him swept up the ridge, they would quickly search all the caves and he would be killed.
As he waited, he prayed, "Lord, if it be Your will, please protect me. Whatever Your will though, I love You and trust You. Amen."
After praying, he lay quietly listening as the enemy began to draw close. He thought, "Well, I guess the Lord isn't going to help me out of this one." Then he saw a spider begin to build a web over the front of his cave.
As he watched, listening to the enemy searching for him all the while, the spider layered strand after strand of web across the opening of the cave.
"Ha!” he thought. "What I need is a brick wall and what the Lord has sent me is a spider web. God does have a sense of humour."
As the enemy drew closer, he watched from the darkness of his hideout and could see them searching one cave after another. As they came to his, he got ready to make his last stand. To his amazement, however, after glancing in the direction of his cave, they moved on. Suddenly, he realized that with the spider web over the entrance, his cave looked as if no one had entered for quite a while. "Lord, forgive me," prayed the young man. "I had forgotten that in You a spider's web is stronger than a brick wall."
We all face times of great trouble. When we do, it is so easy to forget the victories that God would work in our lives, sometimes in the most surprising ways.
But that’s when we encounter the living God, just as Moses encountered the living God in the burning bush and in the parting of the Red Sea.
So when there are burning issues in our lives, whether it is wild plants growing on the roof, or the question about the mystery of the afterlife, let us listen to the voice of the living God.
It is in listening to the voice of the living God that we will come alive and live our lives in the ways of the Lord.