It was not until I read a commentary about the first reading that everything said in that reading could be said of the millions of Ukrainians who were forced to flee their homeland because of the war, or peoples of other nations who today are also fleeing because of the conditions in their country. They too are exiles.
The reading from Second Isaiah was written during the Babylonian Exile. The exile was a devasting experience for the people who felt abandoned and forgotten by God. Second Isiah saw it as his mission to convince the exiled people that God was willing and able to rescue them. God would come to them and lead them home.
The message we heard spoken by the author of Isaiah could be addressed to anyone today who feels alone, abandoned, and believes God to be distant.
Not so, for the God who Isaiah described for us, led people out of darkness. God spared exiles the hardships of the journey, enabling them to travel by a road cut through mountains so that their road would be level.
We heard that the exiles still complained and continued to feel that God had abandoned them, a feeling the persists among exiles today. We heard what God had to say.” Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb”? Even if she should forget, God said he would never forget.
All that was said about God and the exiles of the Old Testament applies to Jesus. The action of God with the exiles of the Old Testament is now carried out by Jesus, who is the revelation of God. We heard how the Jews revolted at such a statement, men saying how could Jesus and the Father be the same. St. John detailed for us the sameness. God the Father raised the dead. The Father working through Jesus bestows resurrection from the dead to the believer.
Whether an exile or not, all of us adopt different attitudes towards God and ourrelationship with Jesus. We all have filters that prevent us from getting God’s message clearly. Some of us run away while others run into his beckoning arms. Hardships are real and debilitating. Lent can be a wonderful opportunity to allow God to speak comforting words to us, among them, “I will not forget you.”
