Friday 18th week Year A
First Reading
Deuteronomy 4:32-40
Second Reading
Matthew 16:24-28
THEME: IT IS ONLY OUR GOD THAT
CAN DO IT.
Traditionally as some of us know,
there is no god or gods that has ever or is ever ready to sacrifice its
existence or any part of it to save its worshippers, rather, they demand for
more sacrifices, external sacrifices. Some of them go to the extent of demanding for human
sacrifice in order to make them stronger to fight for them or to grant them the
favour they need. Traditional gods from time to time demand specific sacrifice
(s) from their worshippers. In my place, we call it maa ida mmadu ihe. Our own
Lord and God do not demand from us a specific sacrifice for a specific request.
He gave us free will to do as we like. If we can recall what happened in the
Bible when Jesus cured ten leapers and one came back to appreciate him, he did
not even ask about the gift he came with but why are others not here to
appreciate him?
In the first reading, Moses is
asking us the new Israelites if we have seen any other god that does what our
God is doing for us. If we have not seen, why are we still hurting him with our
sins? We have left him and his eternal life and are now ready to lose our lives
and that is what Jesus also is asking us in the gospel, what it will profit us.
The reason why the Israelites
were not following God as they supposed was because they did not want to suffer
and that same thing is happening to us these days. We want a crossless
Christianity and Christ but Jesus said no to that in the Gospel. We are not
even happy that our saviour is leading the way of suffering and we are
following him rather, we want him to suffer alone. Christianity of suffering
free is not from Christ for he himself said we must carry our crosses and
follow him every day. Since he is the only one who has offered to lead us in
the way of suffering, let us appreciate him by following and obeying what he
commands us to obey in the conclusion of the first reading. Thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment