Reflection o. Today's Readings, 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 7th, 2021
Texts: Job 7:1-4.6-7; Ps. 147:1-6; 1Cor. 9:16-19.22-23; Mark 1:29-39
A dark moment of life is a period that we confront a situation in life that drown our hope. It is a moment that the saying, "when there is life, there is hope", appears false to us and unacceptable. It is a situation in which one prefers death to life. Job experienced such a situation. Today's first reading is the fruit of his experience of bitterness of life.
Job affirms that hard service characterizes man on earth; it is appointed to man to work till death comes. He tells us that man engages in hard service with expectation. Hence, he says, "and are not his days like the days of hireling? Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like hireling who looks for his wages". When slave works, he looks forward to a period of rest, the evening when he will go home to rest. Hireling too works with expectation, for he looks forward to the payment of his wages. For Job, then, to exist is to work with expectation. He sees life as being characterized by labour and expectation. To live is to labour, but to live without expectation is to lose the meaning of life. This means it is hope that gives meaning to life. Hence, Jurgen Moltmann says, "Totally without hope one cannot live. To live without hope is to cease to live. Hell is hopelessness. It is no accident that above the entrance to Dante's hell is the inscription: 'Leave behind all hope, you who enter here'."
For Job, he was living a meaningless life because he was living without hope. He says, "My days are swifter than a Weaver's shuttle, and come to their end without hope." It could be said that job experienced hell on earth, for he was hopeless. He was hopeless because his labour was fruitless and futile; it yields no reward. From the reading, hope is the expectation of good things, for he adds, "Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will never again see good." He had no hope because his lot had been misery, futility, and emptiness. He says, "I am allotted months of emptiness, and night of misery." To say that he lived without hope is to say that he had no reason to live, so he rather die than to live. This means the impetus for man's existence is the good he expects. Man lives a meaningful life when his service offers him good.
The second reading tells us about a service that offers us better hope, the hope of eternal happiness. The service to God offers us better hope. St. Paul realized this and he gave himself to the service of the gospel. He says, "Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!" He adds, "I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the Gospel, that I may share in its blessings." The service to God is a service that gives eternal reward. When we work for God, He gives us hope, hope to live with Him for ever in heaven. St. Paul tells us that for our service to have reward it must be approved by God. We have to do the will of God in our service to Him, so as to get the reward due to our service.
Today's gospel reading tells us that Jesus Christ has come to give us reason to live. He shows He is our hope by changing the situation which drown our hope. He heals us from our sickness and set us free from the power of evil One. It is said, "And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons". With Jesus Christ, we have reason to live; with Him the future is bright and we look forward to good things. Jesus Christ also dedicated His life to the preaching of the gospel. By this he has taught us to give our lives to the gospel. We spreach the gospel by animating the world with the spirit of Christ, by giving oneself to the gospel, and by sponsoring the spread of the gospel. As we preach the gospel we should remember to do His will, so as to have our reward.
God our Father, help us to keep our hope, that the challenges of life may not drown it. Amen.
Fr. Andrew Olowomuke
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