KEEPING OUR FOCUS
Today’s reading from Hebrews, like the other readings from Hebrews at this time of our transition into the New Year, is reminding all of us to renew our sense of purpose (a better, heavenly country), and our sense of belonging (to God). Because, when we lose these, we cease to move forward and get paralyzed by wastes of time, like ingratitude, dissatisfaction with our world and our place in it, and loneliness. If we don’t work on renewing and straightening out our vision, our God-given focus, we tend to get stuck, as do people ‘remembering that country from which they had come out…’
The reading seems to be about the Old Testament ‘strangers and pilgrims,’ like Abraham, Sarah, Moses and others, but it’s written about us and for us. This becomes increasingly clear if you read further into the next chapter, where the author of Hebrews says, “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…” (Hebr 12).
This season of Theophanies, including Christmas (the ‘Theophany’ or appearance of God to us in Bethlehem), the Adoration of the Magi (His appearance to the Gentiles) and the upcoming feast of His (re)appearance at the River Jordan to be ‘baptised’ or immersed in the ‘waters’ of our material world, – this whole season is one big reminder to us that God is profoundly with us, in the very chaos of these ‘waters’; that we are not alone. He suits up and shows up, time and again, to remind us of the invitation to join “the race that is set before us.” The sports-metaphor is helpful, even for those of us who are not particularly athletic, because it only says we need some daily exercise, to maintain or revive our faith in God’s undying presence to us and among us. Daily we can flex our gratitude-muscles in a bit of heartfelt prayer and contemplation; perhaps we can daily read a bit of Scripture; perhaps light a candle in front of our icons; perhaps keep a journal of our ups and downs before God. He ‘is not ashamed’ of us, ‘to be called’ our God, even as we are ‘strangers and pilgrims on the earth’; a people sometimes with a sense of ‘not having received the promises’ that we may had been hoping for in various contexts of our past. Let us ‘look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,’ and re-connect with Him and His ‘great cloud of witnesses’ both of past and present, on the cross-carrying Way. Happy first day of the Forefeast of Theophany to New Calendar friends, or first day of the Forefeast of Nativity to OC-people!
