Dear Friends,
During my parish ministry days, when I was free to do so, I often moved to the back of the church as weekend liturgies were concluding. Being there gave me a chance to spend a moment with people who were leaving early for whatever reason. One day, an older woman was hurrying out. “I’ve got to get home to John,” she stage-whispered. “You know, my husband. He’s got Parkinson’s and stays in bed until I get home from church. I worry when I am apart from him.”
There’s a connection this weekend between John the Baptist in prison and the woman at the back of the church. Both were anxious.
John had worked hard to live out his call. He prepared carefully, preached faithfully, and called people to repent and live close to God. Now, in prison, he was caught between King Herod’s wrath and his own personal anxiety over his mission: a rock and a hard place.
Was Jesus the one?
Had he expected too much of Jesus?
Had he, John the Baptist, made a mistake?
Had he used his energies for nothing?
Was it too late to pull out?
John, in this passage, was more deeply threatened by the anxiety in his own mind than by Herod.
The woman with the sick husband was also anxious. She could have stayed to the end of Mass and had a few strengthening words with other parishioners, but she was driven to go home without these boosts to her life. You and I know her anxiety, John’s anxiety, even though ours may take a different form.
John, we may recall, was the son of aged parents. We don’t know how many years he had them both, whether he was torn between the care they required and his mission. If he was so torn, many of us know what that’s like, especially during the holidays, the demands of family on us seem to escalate.
Combing the Gospels, we don’t see any evidence that John sat and stewed in his anxiety. Instead, he sent messages out to Jesus: Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?
Caught up as we are in the press of daily life, with its unpredictable mix of the expected and unexpected demands, we would do well to ask Jesus the same question: Are you the one who is to come, or should I look for another?
If He is indeed the one, then He will help us to see, hear, touch others who need us and be touched in return. He is the one who raises us up when we feel dead inside, overwhelmed by work or by dread. He is the one who sets the poor before us, helps us to understand how we can use our best gifts generously for those who need them. And when we are sick or a caregiver of the sick, He is the one who offers us patience and strength to see us through with steadfast love.
When we feel trapped by life or even by the most joyous season of Christmas, Jesus is the one who offers us both healing and blessing. Let Him. Let God be the one who lifts us up.
In the end, we may still be between a rock and a hard place. We may not know how to meet these demanding holidays, but we can still go forward, because, like John, we can trust that God partners with us in all we try to be and do. With Him, we can trust that what we do is not in vain.
~Sister Joan Sobala
