This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.
Many events in the Old Testament foreshadow the saving action of Jesus; Jesus Himself refers to some of these foreshadowings explicitly in the Gospel.
The exile to Babylon described in today’s first reading, however, provides an image of the whole of human history. Man rebels against God. God strives mightily to correct him. Man ignores God. God allows man’s sin to result in the profound suffering of exile. Eventually, man feels nostalgia for the better life with God, and reaches out to God for mercy. God restores man.
This cycle has repeated itself many times in history. At the same time, there is a macro version of the cycle. Man is in permanent exile on earth since the sin of Adam. His ultimate restoration takes place only in eternity, through the salvation won by Christ. In the meantime, we find ourselves in one long Babylonian exile.
There is a way to gain a foretaste, however, of this definitive restoration. Conveniently, we find the key in today’s gospel:
Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
When the people of Israel were bitten by venomous seraph serpents in the desert, God instructed Moses to build a model of a seraph servant and lift it high. Any Israelite who looked upon the servant was miraculously cured of the venom.
When we look upon Jesus lifted up on the Cross, when we look to Him and beg of Him His mercy and grace, when we center our lives on a relationship with Him cultivated in prayer and in the sacraments, when we embrace His love and saving act at the very center of our lives, we are saved from the venom of sin. But more still: We are rescued, in a sense, from the destructive state of our exile here on earth. Because of the joy in our hearts that the experience of Christ brings us, and the complete restoration and peace effected through His saving act, we live in exile as if we didn’t. As if we were already home.
Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Thank Jesus for being lifted up, not for our condemnation, but for our salvation. Ask Him for the gift of the total cure, which makes this earthly exile just a place, not a state of being. Ask Him to fill your heart and take it over, so that He truly becomes your All in All.
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