2nd Sunday of Advent 7.12.08 Signs of salvation
‘Go and tell John what you have seen and heard’. What they had seen and heard were signs of salvation, reminders of God’s goodness. Do you believe in God, someone asked me during the week? Well, I could have answered that many ways, but one answer is there are too many signs of His presence not to believe. Look at the beauty of the world. Beauty must come from somewhere – there has to be a source.
One only needs to hear the first drop of rain to know the drought is over; the first rays of dawn to know the day is coming; the whistle to know the train is coming.
Salvation is more complicated. Yet it must come; it is coming insofar as the first signs have been evident around us. Not only what Jesus did, but the saints, and what happens at Lourdes etc.
Read the signs. We often say that by way of warning, as in ‘Get ready for the end’.
There is another side to reading the signs: the certainty that from one blessing there are other blessings to follow.
Many are of a gloomy disposition, sobered by disappointment, finding it hard to hope for anything much better than we have now.
We notice good things happening and are grateful for them but fail to put two and two together.
If we had time to write a book we could compile all healing miracles on record and it would be a very large book. We hear about healings but they seem so isolated we do not get really excited about it.
But even if one miracle happens it is like the train whistle – there must be a Source of miracle behind it, and other miracles to come. Even one miracle proves this.
We fail to follow the logic through because a lot of bad things happen too. and when that happens we say, Where is God, and start beating that drum. But one miracle is enough to prove that God means well towards us and has the power to carry it through.
No doubt we would see a lot more miracles if there were a greater obedience in the world.
Jesus directs, Go back and tell, to prove there is Salvation in the world. A lot of work to be done, but the principle is established.
Let’s make more miracles happen by concerted belief, no more doubt, no more arguing.
The bad is only what comes in when we don’t take advantage of the good. Let the good overwhelm the bad.
Those who do read the signs have an obligation to announce the coming of the better reality to everyone else.
This is our position in the Church. They laugh at us for believing these things, but we must tell them anyway.
It is harder to work miracles in an unbelieving world. Perhaps the first miracle is to keep our own faith! To be able to believe the day is coming when we have seen the dawn – of course it must be coming – but harder to believe if most others do not.
So we learn to hold on to the signs that come from heaven and not the scorn that comes from man.
Scorn costs the human race a lot, leaving it oblivious both to the wrath and the bounty of God, and losing out in both directions.
For our part we return to simplicity – simply read the signs. See all the goodness around and deduce from that the goodness of the Lord. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
This is not demanding on the intelligence; only on the will.
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