Today’s readings show us as the Cranky People of God. In the first reading from Numbers, the Israelites are being led to safety and salvation, out of exile in Egypt and toward their homeland. The journey is long and frustrating. Their complaint? “We are disgusted with this wretched food!”
Perhaps a little more gratitude would have been in order.
But the Numbers reading reveals a wonderful story of healing. The people are being plagued by serpents who bite “and many of them died.” When Moses prays for the people, God tells him make an image of a serpent and mount it on a pole. Anyone who looked up at it would be healed. All they had to do was gaze upon it, to trust in God and they would be healed.
In the gospel, the Pharisees challenge Jesus and misunderstand what he is saying. He talks about salvation and about being saved from their sins. “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM…,” he tells them. For us to be saved, Jesus has to be lifted up, to be hung from a cross. Like the Israelites, we must gaze up and believe if we are to be saved.
It sounds so simple, to look on God and believe. But we resist. Our lives are about logic, not hearts and we can’t afford to place too much trust in a God who might disappoint us. We get cranky with the God who loves us to deeply, demanding that he rid our lives of difficult people and painful situations.
But it’s there in the pain and the frustration of our lives that Jesus invites us to be healed. He asks us to look up at him and trust and to realize that he is joining us in the pain of our lives. He takes our place in the pain and gives us the healing love we need so desperately. It is in the depths of our pain that Jesus brings us the healing we need and the love we crave. We have only to look on him and trust.
Maureen McCann Waldron
The most important part of my life is my family – Jim my husband of 47 years and our two children. Our daughter Katy, a banker here in Omaha, and her husband John, have three wonderful children: Charlotte, Daniel and Elizabeth Grace. Our son Jack and his wife, Ellie, have added to our joy with their sons, Peter and Joseph.
I think family life is an incredible way to find God, even in (or maybe I should say, especially in) the most frustrating or mundane moments.
I am a native of the East Coast after graduating in 1971 from Archbishop John Carroll High School in suburban Philadelphia. I graduated from Creighton University in 1975 with a degree in Journalism and spent most of the next 20 years in corporate public relations in Omaha. I returned to Creighton in the 1990s and completed a master’s degree in Christian Spirituality in 1998.
As our children were growing up, my favorite times were always family dinners at home when the four of us would talk about our days. But now that our kids are gone from home, my husband and I have rediscovered how nice it is to have a quiet dinner together. I also have a special place in my heart for family vacations when the kids were little and four of us were away from home together. It’s a joy to be with my growing family.
Writing a Daily Reflection is always a graced moment, because only with God’s help could I ever write one. I know my own life is hectic, disjointed and imperfect and I know most of us have lives like that. I usually write from that point of view and I always seem to find some sentence, some word in the readings that speaks right to me, in all of my imperfection. I hope that whatever I write is in some way supportive of others.
It’s an incredibly humbling experience to hear from someone who was touched by something I wrote. Whether the note is from someone across campus or across the world, it makes me realize how connected we are all in our longing to grow closer to God.
