PEOPLE OF HOPE

Today’s 1st reading speaks of God promising to Abraham that he’ll be a father of multitude. His name was changed from Abram to Abraham and exactly what his name means, father of all nations. Abraham was promised that his descendants will be so great just like looking at the stars and not be able to count them. When God gave this promise, he was 99 years old and Sarah was 90. All he did was trust God. It’s not hard to believe in a God who brought everything out of nothing. Are we going to trust or not? In Gen 18, Abraham was visited by the Lord’s angels. He exercises hospitality to them whereas Sarah laughed to herself when she heard that she’s going to bear a child at her age. And the Lord said to Abraham, why did Sarah laugh? God wants us to trust Him. There are times in our lives when we doubt the promise of God. Or worse, we sometimes laugh at the promises of God. We can be astonished and say how marvelous it is but we shouldn’t laugh. God made this promise and He will fulfill it. We can see that after God made a covenant with Abraham in Gen 15:12, As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram, and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him. This is a foreshadowing of someone who fell into deep darkness in Good Friday. Abraham went into deep darkness as this deep sleep descended to Jesus on Good Friday. A soldier pierced His side from which flowed blood and water that fills the world, washes our sins and gives new life thus in the dark sleep a new humanity was born. We, the people of Christ belong to that humanity, a people of hope. There is no doubt that God is able to fulfill His promise thus it is imperative that we keep our part of the covenant, no matter how deep a darkness we may be going through. In doing so we sometimes have to go through our own Good Fridays in order to yield to God's will in our lives, be full of hope and thus become very blessed just like our father Abraham. Amen. Hallelujah!

Genesis 17:3-9
3 When Abram prostrated himself, God continued to speak to him: 4 “My covenant with you is this: you are to become the father of a host of nations. 5 No longer shall you be called Abram; your name shall be Abraham, for I am making you the father of a host of nations. 6 I will render you exceedingly fertile; I will make nations of you; kings shall stem from you. 7 I will maintain my covenant with you and your descendants after you throughout the ages as an everlasting pact, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. 8 I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are now staying, the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession; and I will be their God.” 9 God also said to Abraham: “On your part, you and your descendants after you must keep my covenant throughout the ages.”

Almost everybody knows this famous Christian song from kindergarten, “Father Abraham has many children, some of them are small, some of them are tall, all of them are beautiful...” We remain beautiful as long as we keep God's covenant and remain obedient and faithful to God. We should always keep in mind all the wonderful things He has done for us. We need to further explore, know and understand about our faith. In doing so we have to constantly look to the Lord, seek Him and recall His goodness. Amen. Hallelujah!

Psalms 105:4-5, 6-7, 8-9
R: The Lord remembers his covenant forever.
4 Look to the LORD in his strength; seek to serve him constantly. 5 Recall the wondrous deeds that he has wrought, his portents, and the judgments he has uttered. (R) 6 You descendants of Abraham, his servants, sons of Jacob, his chosen ones! 7 He, the LORD, is our God; throughout the earth his judgments prevail. (R) 8 He remembers forever his covenant which he made binding for a thousand generations — 9 which he entered into with Abraham and by his oath to Isaac.

All of the Old Testament is a preparation for Christ. Those who were faithful were all looking ahead for salvation. Jesus is the source of salvation that God has prepared for us. As in today’s gospel, Jesus said, “Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.” Jesus is the great I AM, which means saving God’s people from their enemies as in Isaiah 45 and in John 8. Jesus said, “I AM.” The sense of this name, I AM means life, being and existence. He brings us the way out of sin and death. He is life and being. He creates out of nothing. We are co creators of God as parents. Eve our 1st mother when she gave birth said, “I have brought forth a man with the help of the Lord” It is a marvelous thing that has happened in our lives as parents. This is a creation of God who allowed us to cooperate with Him. What we have brought forth we have done by cooperating in His decision to bring forth someone to this world who is our equal in dignity, a human person. We can always have hope that out of barrenness God will bring life. We live in a world where life is in such attack. We’re dealing with not just the sin against life where 50 M babies are aborted each year. No war, plague, poverty nor any sickness even cancer or AIDS are taking more life than abortion. We fight not just against the evil of abortion but what we’re confronting is a sin against hope. Abortion is a product of lost hope. People feel that they have no freedom of choice. They do not have freedom or no choice. What they often say is that they do not know how to bring a child in the world, without realizing that the child is already in the world. People often say that we bring a child into the world when it is born. The child in the womb is real and already in the world. If not, then what world is the child in them in? We should believe that the child fully exist and is already a person. We need to be careful about the way we talk about pregnancy and change about the way we talk about a child in the womb. The child is already in the world so we need not wait for the child to be born before choosing a name. We give it soon after conception as a way of acknowledging the presence of a person since we don‘t know anyone without a name. We need to restore hope, open the door to life and say yes to life. Hope leads to life. Jesus gives us life and hope and transforms the world in the process. We don’t pass from life to death but life through death. Thanks for Jesus’ words in today’s gospel. It tells us to move forward to salvation and keep His word and not see death. Death is something that we should not be afraid of because it is only our physical bodies that will die if we continue to nourish our soul then we can be assured of being able to stand face to face with God when that day comes. An article said that once we die physically our souls will immediately depart our bodies and run back to our Creator, God who breathed life/soul in our bodies. It is written in Genesis that when God created Adam, He breathed life into it. This explains why some people when they die look as if their catching their breath it's because that is the breath of life that God has given to us and will return to where it came from. Since we are all aware of the fact that God is Almighty, Holy and Immortal, His Divine Presence can blind anyone standing in His Presence. Although Jesus has gifted us eternal salvation we are supposed to decide if we will accept in our lives this gift. Take it or leave it. The same way when we accept gifts from other people, these people can not force us to like their gifts and make use of them, it's all up to us whether we'll keep it, dispose it, or make use of it. Unlike the time of Moses, when only him can stand before God's presence, on our final day here on earth we come face to face with God that is why we are supposed to prepare ourselves for that day when we neither know the day nor the hour. Let us always keep God's Word that we may enjoy the gift of eternal life. Amen. Hallelujah!

John 8:51-59
51 Jesus said to the Jews: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.” ...Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad. 57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” 59 So they picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area.