3 IMAGES

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Wednesday in the 4^th Week of Lent is, “Three Images!”

Today’s readings give 3 powerful images for our consideration about our connection and our relationship to God.

1) TRAPPED

The first image is that of being trapped. We’ve all been deeply moved when there is a story of miners trapped deep in the ground – and they are saved.

Or we have been moved deeply when hostages are freed.

Or we’ve been moved with horror on seeing TV documentaries on Auschwitz, Dachau, Buckenald or any of those concentration camps where Jews were gassed and burnt to death. Then we rejoice when we see our soldiers or Russian soldiers getting there and freeing the men and women who survived.

Well, in today’s first reading from Isaiah, he gives the great image of prisoners being freed. Those in darkness, hear, “Come out. Show yourselves.”

In the gospel the same image is found and it’s even deeper. It’s the scream of God over all the graves of the world – the scream of God at every funeral – calling people to new life and resurrection.

Being liberated – being freed – becoming untrapped – rescued is a  very powerful image.

I think of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” – his unique opera on this powerful theme of the freeing of prisoners.  Beethoven was asked to write an opera on this theme. He was given a book that told the story about political prisoners in Spain. The main story line of the opera is “Fidelio” -  the fidelity of a woman with her love for her husband.

A man named Florestan is arrested in Spain because of his opposition to those in power. He is put in prison – and then in chains – he is brought to the deepest part of the prison. His wife, Lenore, poses as a young man and takes job after job, step after step, to work her way into the prison to save her husband.

Florestan’s arch enemy decides to kill Florestan with a knife – and Lenore jumps in front of her husband and holds off Pizzaro with a pistol. She stops the murder of her husband. She exposes Pizzaro for what he is.  She helps the political prisoners to be freed. She takes off her husband’s chains. There is a great trumpet call when the prisoners are set free.

Beethoven was an optimist that stayed an optimist – when Romanticism in Europe went sour and heads rolled.

So the first of the 3 images that I'm mentioning today  is that of being freed. We know that many people come back to God when they are stuck – in prison – caught in a problem – when they experience the death or sickness of a loved one.

2) MOTHER

The first reading from Isaiah has the second powerful image. It's that of a mother. Isaiah says what every mother feels: even if all forget you, I won’t. We know this. Stand in any place where there are small children and we'll see them children clinging to their moms. When scared we see little kids always running back to their moms at church, in the playground, in the supermarket.

And all our lives our moms remain central.

Well, Isaiah uses that image and says that God loves us with motherly love. In fact, he says, "If a mother forgets her child, I’ll never forget you."

Question: how am I like my mother?

3) FATHER

And the third image is that of a father. If you want to understand Jesus and his relationship to his Father, the gospel of John is a good place to start.

Jesus is always talking about his Father. Jesus sees life through the lens of his Father.  As today’s gospel [John 5:17-30] puts it, his fellow Jews want to kill him because of this. They make the leap that he is equalizing himself with his Father.

Today’s gospel - and much of the Gospel of John has Jesus doing just that. We see and hear that everything Jesus does is in light of his Father.

Today’s gospel is very Trinitarian. You can hear in its words the proclamation of John’s church that Jesus is the Son of Man and God is Our Father.

Question: how am I like my father?

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily is, “Three Images”.

I believe the 3 images that I pulled out of today’s readings: father, mother and being trapped are very powerful.

Question: is every person like a child - feeing trapped and we cry out to God as our Savior, our Mother and our Father.