Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Isaiah 49:8-15 and John 5:17-30

By the time we were finished, I thought he bore a striking resemblance to Baymax, the inflatable robot in Disney’s movie, Big Hero 6. My son was preparing to play outside in the frigid cold. We laced his boots over his snow pants and struggled to zip his jacket, which was bulging over his high turtleneck and wool sweater. With a hat, scarf, and mittens, he could barely move. Eager to play in the snow, out he bobbled, his mother keeping watch through the window.
 
Beyond the yard where this child plays, troubles are mounting. We worry about the woman a few doors down, whose eyes are often hidden behind sunglasses. A few miles away, gangs are selling drugs and practicing violence. Even further afield, daughters are abducted and sons are beheaded. In such a world, it is easy to lose faith. It is easy to feel forsaken by God.
 
But in today’s reading, Isaiah assures us that the LORD “will have compassion on his suffering ones” (Isaiah 49:13), no more able to forget the covenant and its promises than “a woman [could] forget her nursing child” (Isaiah 49:15).
 
As the Body of Christ, let us be empowered by grace to live as he lived. Like the mother who watches over her child and is ready to intervene when he needs her, and recognizing that sometimes we carry and sometimes we are carried, let us be attentive to the needs of the world. Let us be God’s hands and feet, and intervene (as they sing in Africa), "in the corner where we are."


Kimberly Vrudny, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Theology