(1Kings.18,21)
I was day dreaming…
A small boy, still innocent and inquisitive, was asking,
“Mum, does Jesus cry sometimes?”
“Yes he does, my son. The problem is that no one cares!
We are too busy. We have so many things to do.”
Was this mother right?
Is there anyone concerned about a baby shivering with cold in a manger?
Is there anyone who is any longer disturbed watching a stripped person dangling on a cross?
Do we lose any sleep on this terrible injustice that they (we) did on this man?
We have too many errands to make.
Too much stress to face.
Too many balloons to blow.
We live in deception.
People laughing
but… their eyes betray a deep interior sadness.
All shining on the outside but on the inside all is heavy.
Many times we cheerfully greet each other but our hearts is full of envy.
How many times we just lock ourselves into our house
hemmed in by our four walls
and do not bother, or dare even to look beyond the window.
Rule number one for several :
Learn to fend for yourself, because nobody is going to scratch your back.
Give someone an inch and they’ll take a mile…
And then we go tranquilly to Church.
And we are friends of the priests.
We feel so good about ourselves and about our Christianity!
Time to ask ourselves a vital question :
Why did Jesus Christ come into the world?
To help us forget our worries?
To facilitate our flight from the hassles of our everyday lives?
To alienate us a bit more?
To make our life more comfortable and soft?
Is this what Christianity is about?
A life without risks?
A life full of compromises?
Befriending the god-money and God-Jesus Christ?
After all these years of Christianity, have we understood anything?
Following Jesus means following His path to the Cross.
Following Jesus means suffering his same fate.
They will put us aside
as they did with him in Bethlehem.
They will call us fools
as they called him a fool.
They will scourge us,
as they scourged him.
They will make fun of us,
as they made fun of him.
When you love like him,
one day or another
your heart will be pierced
because you will have loved too much,
your legs will be broken
because you will have walked too much,
your hands will be pierced
because you will have embraced too much,
your life will finish on a cross
as His life finished on a cross.
But, afterwards…
“And the Word of Yahweh came to him saying:
‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’
He replied:
‘I am full of jealous zeal for Yahweh,
Sabaoth, because the Israelites have abandoned your covenant…’
Then he was told:
‘Go out and stand on the mountain,
before the Lord’.
For at that moment Yahweh was going by:
A mighty hurricane split the mountains.
But Yahweh was not in the hurricane.
And after the hurricane, an earthquake,
But Yahweh was not in the earthquake.
And after the earthquake, fire.
But Yahweh was not in the fire.
And after the fire, a light murmuring sound.
And when Elijah heard this, he covered his face with his cloak,
And went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.
Then a voice came to him, which said:
‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ ”
(1 Kings 19.9-13)