Our Unwillingness To Yield To God

 

Unless yield to God, we will be far from peace.

Reflection on Today’s Readings, Friday of 2nd Week of Advent B, December 15th, 2023
Texts: Isaiah 48:17-19; Psalm 1:1-4,6; Matthew 11:16-19 

Today’s first reading and the gospel reading bewail our unwillingness to yield to God. God says, “O that you had listened to my commandments!” Jesus says, “To what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, 'We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.”  

The question to us is this: Why are we unwilling to listen to God? Jesus tells us that the answer is in our deeds. He puts it thus: “Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds." Since we have chosen a way contrary to the will of God, we make up excuses for it. Hence, Jesus says, “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon'; the Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” This means we have to reconsider our ways and deeds. 

It is the right way

Prophet Isaiah tells us that it is the teaching of the Lord we need for fulfilment. He puts it thus: “I am the  Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go.” This tells us that failure to yield to God is to walk the wrong way. We choose to be unprofitable when we turn deaf ear to the instructions from God. It is only by following God’s instructions that we walk the right way in life. The way may be lonely or rough, it is the right way. Other ways may be wide and lively, they are ways to doom. Apart from God’s instructions, others cannot profit us. 

Prophet also recounts what we lose for not listening to God. We lose peace, righteousness and prosperity. In his words: “Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; your offspring would have been like the sand” Unless yield to God, we will be far from peace, righteousness and prosperity. Do I need peace? I should listen to His commandments. Do I desire righteousness? I should keep His commandments. Do I need prosperity? I should live His commandments.  

Prayer 

Grant that your people, we pray, almighty God, may be ever watchful for the coming of your Only Begotten Son, that, as the author of our salvation himself has taught us, we may hasten, alert and with lighted lamps, to meet him when he comes. Amen (Collect) 

Fr. Andrew Olowomuke