"Striving Together to Bring Light Into Darkness"
The 3rd Sunday
of the Christian Season of Epiphany
Amos 3: 1 – 8/Psalm 139: 1 – 12/1 Corinthians 1: 10 – 17/Matthew
4: 12 - 23
His Excellency
The Most Reverend Ariel Cornelio P.
Santos D.D.
of the
Archdiocese of Manila
the
National Church in the Philippines
and the
Territorial Church of Asia
International Communion of the
Charismatic Episcopal Church
This is the Third Sunday of Epiphany and today, we are enjoined, we are
challenged, and we are instructed to strive together to bring light into
darkness. I would lay a foundation from John 1:4-5 which is read many
times during the Christmas Season. It says, “In Him was life, and the
life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the
darkness did not comprehend it.” Verse 9, “There was the true
light which, coming into the world, enlightens ever man.” Verse 11, “He came to His own, and those who
were His own did not receive Him.”
Light in the gospel today
is described as great light. This light came into the world, into His own
creation and they did not receive Him. There are only two responses to
the day of God’s visitation: reject or appreciate it. Either
we ignore it or we take heed and respond to it. When we don’t appreciate
it, there may be reasons. Maybe we just don’t care; maybe we don’t
notice; maybe we have been made callous and insensitive and so we don’t
recognize that they are our visitation. Some of us easily sleep in the
light.
Every day during the week,
I leave my house to come to the Church before the light of day. More than
once, I drive my car with my headlights on. Pedestrians would not notice
a car in the dark, with its headlights on, until they are two meters from the
light. When they are right in front of the car, they would act startled
as if they have not seen the car from afar. I don’t understand that. How
can you miss a car with headlights on and in the dark? Some people may
have something in their minds and they don’t respond.
Jesus said of the Jews,
“We played the flute, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did
not mourn. There is no reply. We don’t know what to do
anymore. We have done all we can and nothing comes from you.” He
also said, “You don’t recognize the day of your coming. At the judgment,
the men of Nineveh would stand with you, rise up against you and condemn you
because at the word of Jonah, the prophet, they repented. But you have
Somebody greater than Jonah visiting you today and you did not respond.”
He added, “The queen of Sheba will stand up in judgment against this generation
and will condemn it because she travelled far to hear and see the Wisdom of
Solomon.” She responded and paid a price. This
generation doesn’t not respond, does not repent to the visitation of Somebody
greater than Solomon. They did not recognize the day of their visitation.
We need to realize the day
of visitation and the blessing that comes with it. We are a people
who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death. The light visited us and
we are to be thankful. We are to respond. Our sins have been
forgiven, washed away. Our life has been restored. The Father has gladly
given us the Kingdom. We are blessed! Sometimes, we just don’t know
how to count our blessings or recognize them in the first place. We
are so blessed with everything.
I am thankful for the cool
weather. I don’t mind having this weather all year round. I like it.
It is good and I am very thankful for it. I am thankful for family.
Thankful! I have a wonderful gift for a wife. I am thankful for her. I
have six wonderful children. My children woke up early to wash our vehicle, and
it was cold, and I am thankful for them. I am thankful for the Church,
for this Church! We are to be thankful. We have a lot of things to
be thankful for. When I say that, do I mean that everything is
rosy? No! I thank God for the blessings as well as the
challenges. I thank God for friends, for all the members of the
Church. All things work together for good when it comes to God. It
is all good!
We are blessed, but
sometimes, we don’t realize our blessings. We don’t know how to count
them and Eve didn’t either, which was the cause of the fall. She sinned
because she did not know that she had more than enough. She shouldn’t
have wanted. Psalm 23 wasn’t written then for her excuse that she should
have heard that she should not want. This is what happens
sometimes. Our responsibility is to be sensitive enough. Parents
should make their children understand that they are blessed. Make all
realize it.
I was privileged to be
able to be at the last International Convocation two years ago which was held
in Madrid. We went to a sidetrip to Rome after the Convocation. One sight
almost made me cry. I saw this elderly woman knocking at the window of
the car I was riding. The driver gave her a coin, and I saw this woman
clasped her hands, looked up to the sky, smiled and thanked God for what was
given to her. It reminded me that on the plane, I complained about the
food. I complained about a few minutes of delay. I did not realize that I
was already in Europe on a trip! How many are privileged to be able to go
to Europe? This lady was so thankful for the coin that she
received! How many of us are like that?
We complain about
everything? We complain that our Dad got us an Adidas instead of
Nike. Sometimes, the father has to find a picture on the Internet that
shows either a person or a boy same image as his son with only one foot; or an
African boy with a something that looks like slippers, which he just made it
up. We need to understand that we are a blessed people. This is not
just material things. Basically, if we don’t have anything else, we must
be thankful that we have been called by God, out of darkness into His marvelous
light. For that alone, we must be thankful. We complain about
everything. We must stop and understand that we have a lot more reasons
to thank God for than to complain about.
1Thessalonians 5:18 says
that in everything, give thanks for this is God’s will for you. Don’t
stop being thankful. Just being in the presence of God, there is fullness
of joy, and we must be thankful for that. The Psalms says, “Where can I go from
Your love? If I climb to the heavens You are there. If I climb to
the mountains, You are there. Down to the bottom of the sea, You are
there. In Sheol, You are there.” Paul said that in everything, in
every circumstance, and in every place, give thanks. It is meet, right,
and a bounden duty to give thanks to you always and everywhere. Even if
you go through hell, God is there. When you are going through it,
the presence of God can still bring fullness of joy.
Jesus said, “Repent, for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Repent from darkness, from gloom, and
realize the blessedness of the Kingdom being here. Jesus said to repent
because the kingdom of God has come. It is at hand and we are to live
accordingly and in fullness therein.
The tribes of Zebulun & Naphtali saw a great light and that’s what we have
right now. We have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light, and
the proper response is: arise, shine for your light has come. There is
reason to rejoice, to arise and to shine. These are positive responses to
the light coming. All we need to do is respond. God has already done
everything in His initiative.
How do we respond?
We obey Him, we worship Him, we obey Him, we praise Him, and we give thanks and
we offer back to Him. What do we offer back to Him? That is
which, in the first place, He has blessed us with. Instead, what we don't
do is realize this is a blessing. When we don’t realize our blessing, it
causes us to be insecure. Insecurity then causes divisions, factions, and
quarrels because of a lack of contentment. This causes us to have “grabbing
hands” because we don’t think that we have enough so our tendency is to
accumulate for ourselves. It is for self-preservation.
Self-preservation is the
origin of politics. Poly means many; tic is a blood-sucking
creature. Politics then is many blood-sucking creatures. Each one
is selfish. Each wants to preserve themselves. Each wants the blood
for himself alone, and they would throw mud at others, put them down, and step
on them like crab mentality. This does not mean at all that the light has
not come. It means we have not been illumined with the understanding that
it has indeed come!
St. Paul says, “Be made
complete instead of having factions and quarrels.” Realize that God has
gladly given us everything. Everything we need is available and
very good. When Jesus said, “The Father has gladly given us the kingdom,”
it simply means He is renewing the covenant He made with Adam. God
gave Adam the Kingdom in the beginning. He started in the Garden, and He
gave us the Kingdom back gladly. Thus, there is no reason to worry.
The Psalmist says,
"If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, surely the prices
of gasoline and electricity will overwhelm my budget, surely this problem and
that problem, this irritating person will overwhelm me, but the darkness is not
darkness to thee.’” Darkness and light are alike to be, no problem.
You can turn darkness into good. Brightness, light is still good. All
things work together for good.
God is not intimidated
with any problem. In fact, He won’t give you anything that will overwhelm
you or that which you cannot bear. All things work together for good but
we are to be complete and mature in handling responsibility. The New
Testament language says, “Act like men.” Man is a creature made in the image
and likeness of God.” He is a conqueror. He is a creature who has
the breath and life of God in Him. Act like a man and when we do, we are
in unity. When we are in unity, then, we multiply, fill, and
subdue. This is to say that we fulfill our mandate that we have
received from God. When we don’t, then we are defeated. We stay in the
darkness.
Like Adam, Noah was
told when he got out of the ark to fill the earth and subdue it.
Noah was to populate the earth. My Bible says in the footnote: swarm the
earth. Have you seen a swarm of flies? In Saigon or Vietnam,
you would see a swarm of motorcycles. Swarm doesn’t mean dispersed,
sparse or few. It means concentrated in one place – there is a lot of them. God
told Noah, “Swarm the earth.” You cannot be a believer and be an advocate of
family planning or abortion. The kingdom of God is always overflowing,
swarming, and more than abundant. We are far from the fulfillment of our
mandate and we better start now instead of going around in circles like the
Israelites in the wilderness, like politicians and not getting anywhere because
of divisions. This causes us not to move forward in our journey.
Jesus told His disciples,
“You follow Me and I will make you fishers of men. I will teach you how
to catch men and then you teach them how to fish properly in the kingdom of
God.” He said, “Follow Me, the second Adam, and I will show you that God’s
commandment of loving divinely and filling the earth and subduing it can be
done and I will show you how it is done.” The disciples immediately
followed because today is the day of salvation. The light comes,
you are in darkness, you jumped off. Like the paralytic in the Book of
Acts, he jumped off immediately on hearing the good news, on seeing the light.
Today is the day of
salvation for yourself first and through you, for others. Today!
Right now! It is not the end of the story; it is only the beginning when we respond.
For the apostles, it wasn’t all rosy. They were not perfect instantly and
it took them awhile to get the message of Christ, but they did respond
initially.
We are all servants of
Christ and members of one Body, and members of one another. How can we
not be in unity? If our nature is that we are in unity, then it should be
harder to not be in unity. If we have been made united, it is harder to
not be united because you would work against that which has been your
nature. The Holy Spirit gave us unity. Like Jesus asked Paul, “Why
do you kick against the goats or point an object. You are just hurting yourself
when you do that.” Do not work against that which God has done,
otherwise, we will find ourselves opposing the will of God and the work of God.
We say, “I support this
person. I am of Paul. I am of Apollos.” This is right here in
Church. “I am of this group and that group.” We have built our kingdoms.
We have allies and friends. “My political party is this.” We are in
unity; we are one Body. We need to let go of our biases and the worship
of personalities. We are just one Body. Be of the same mind;
strive together with a common purpose, and that is when we will move. We
only follow one Lord. We only have one Head, and we are all members of
one another and are of the same Body.
Like Amos asked, “Can you
walk together and not be in agreement, in unity?” We can't. In a
Cathedral wedding, you have seen how that we have made the couple walk together
with the cord around their necks to go and light the unity candle. It is
a training for them because being married and giving your commitment to love
means that you cannot go your own way anymore without consideration of the
other. When you are single, you can do and go where you want. Now,
that you are married, you don’t live for yourself alone. You have
somebody you need to consider because you have made yourself one with your
spouse. You cannot do your own thing anymore. You are married to
the Church and to Christ. You will have to stop being immature and
seeing only your needs.
After the wedding come
children which means even less and less your needs and more and more of other’s
needs especially when they are infants. You would asked, “Why don’t you
go to the bathroom yourself and wipe yourself?” No, you have to do it for
them. A parent would say, “I want to watch TV.” You can’t because
you have to take care of your baby. “I want to go to my friend’s party.”
Yes, but if you have an infant at home, you have to take care of him.
You cannot do anymore what
you want to do. You don’t live exclusively for yourself anymore. You have
somebody that you are responsible for. This is our mandate, our calling,
which is to consider those we have committed ourselves to serve. We
decrease so they increase. You give a child attention so that they
grow. You give of yourself to them so that they grow. You
give of yourself, you decrease so that they increase and they grow. This is
what we do not only for children but for all our brethren especially the least
of them who also are Christ’s brethren.
The Prayer of St. Francis
says that if we are committed, we don’t seek to be consoled, we console. We
don’t seek to be understood, we give understanding. We don’t seek to be
loved, we love. You don’t have to look for it. It will come
back. You will be consoled; you will be loved, and you will be
understood. Our calling first is to give. You say, “You don’t understand
what I am going through.” You don’t need to be consoled; you console.
Maybe, this is the answer to your problem.
When I say children, I am
talking about children from 1 to 92. There are the perpetual children
which constantly need attention. You need to give to them.
Children, since they are not mature yet, will complain. You give to them,
they will ask for more. If they are not satisfied, you look like you are
the bad guy. They will not appreciate your giving. Mother Teresa
says, “Give anyway. Take care of them anyway.” The command is to be
mature; be made complete. It starts with the realization of blessedness.
Understand that you have
something to give. You say, “I can’t give because I am need
myself.” No, you are blessed, and then you give. Realize that you
have an abundant blessing to start with. We have the light and there are dark
places that we are to bring this light into. Again, it starts with the
realization that we have the light in the first place. We go to dark
places together. There is more than enough light to go around.
Do we really decrease in
the principle of the kingdom of God when we give? Actually, we are
programmed to multiply to increase whenever we give. That, my
brother and sister, is the way it is in the Kingdom of light.
LET
US CONTINUE OUR REFLECTION
WITH
HIS EMINENCE, THE MOST REVEREND LUIS ANTONIO "CHITO"
GOKIM TAGLE D.D.
ARCHBISHOP OF MANILA,
AND
OF THE PHILIPPINES
THROUGH
THE WORD EXPOSED
What are the values that are upheld as important in the world around you? How does the Gospel challenge or affirm them?