Tuesday in the First Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle II
1 Sam 1:9-20; Mk 1, 21-28
Jesus came to inaugurate a new creation which starts right here. After all, this is the fundamental meaning of Jesus's mission here on earth: to inaugurate the Kingdom of God.
We know that we long for it because there is a yearning in our heart which seeks to be satisfied. In the first reading we see it in the form of Hannah who longs to have a child. Only then, she believes, would she have found meaning in her life. Interestingly, she does not even want to keep the child for herself. She promises God that if she is given a child, she will offer him to God as a Nazerite, that is, one who according to a precept in the Book of Numbers will be consecrated, set aside to God as was Samson. Their hair could never be cut, they must abstain from wine and other strong beverages, and but spend a life of service to God.
Our prayers might be different from Hannah's but in essence they are the same. We are aware of our limitations and believe that if we receive what we ask of God, our life would be fulfilled. We also start (with all good intentions!) bargaining with God more or less as Hannah did: if you give me this, I will give you that in return. It often happens with our health, or the health of our loved ones, or with relationships that are breaking down.
In Hannah's prayer we also see the the temptation of doubt in the form of a single comment from Eli the priest, but which only serves to make Hannah even more resolute in her faith, and which is further confirmed by Eli himself.
Jesus is the response to our prayers for all that le long for to make us whole again. The detail that Jesus teaches with authority in the synagogue, silences the unclean spirit and heals the man on a Sabbath is not coincidental. In Genesis, the Sabbath was the day when God looked at what he created and seeing that it was very good, rested after having created the world.
Likewise, Jesus now heralds a new creation, restoring what was lacking because of sin and opening up a future full of new possibilities. Jesus enters into our deepest longing and desires: about our health, be it physical or spiritual; about our relationships with our closest family members and friends and with those whose name perhaps we do not even know. We plead with him with the same faith that Hannah had, notwithstanding doubts and questions that we face, and which Jesus has the authority to silence with the power of his word.
Jesus acts in our life and in our world in unprecedented ways. Nobody can predict how Jesus will respond to our deepest personal or communal desires or longings to be restored to wholeness because God's creativity by far out does ours. However we know he will.
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