human effort will always fall short - tuesday of holy week 2015

This portion of the book of Isaiah was written after the exile.  The people have now returned to the Promised Land and have begun rebuilding their lives after years of exile in Babylon.  They were filled with enthusiasm and hope.  They are now in their own land.  They are starting things anew and there was a surge of excitement.  Then after sometime things did not turn out the way they envisioned things.  The rebuilding was not easy.  The leaders they put their hope on did not turn out the way they expected them to be.  The people too, the returnees were a source of disillusionment.  There were quarrels and conflicts.  There were disagreements.  People were no longer happy and sure enough the initial enthusiasm soon faded.

Sometimes we go through the same feelings, don’t we?  We have a lot of expectations on something or somebody.  We were excited.  We have many plans we thought would work.  We thought everything will turn out well.  We thought we are going to live happily ever after.  But surely enough Murphy’s law applies – “if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong.”  And many things did go wrong in our lives.

What are the lessons Isaiah is giving us?  What can we glean from God’s words through the prophet?

First, human effort will always fall short.  Our imagination, our ideals are infinite, it can soar so high.  We can even imagine ourselves to be superman.   But our efforts will always remain finite and limited.  It will always fall short of what we aim to do.  As Isaiah said - “I thought I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, I have uselessly, spent my strength.” We will always find ourselves wanting in many respects.

Second, only God can perfect things, only God can complete things.  Isaiah said, “My reward is with the LORD, my recompense is with my God. I am made glorious in the sight of the LORD, and my God is now my strength!”

On our own we cannot do things perfectly.  There will always be defects.  We will always fall short.  Let us never think that we can do things on our own.

Third, it is always important to be conscious about what God is forming in us, what God is doing in us.  Many times when difficulties come we go immediately to God and tell him, Lord take this difficulty out.  But it might be good to ask first, Lord what are you showing me with this difficulty, what are you forming in me with this difficulty, what strength are you honing in me with this difficulty?  Be conscious as to what God is doing in you and forming you into.  Isaiah said:  “The LORD called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name. He made of me a sharp-edged sword and concealed me in the shadow of his arm. He made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me.”  The actions words are He gave me, he made me, he hid me, he polished me.

As I always tell the seminarians -  many times it’s not what we do to ourselves that makes us better persons.  Many times it is what God does to us in the many events and experiences of our lives that make us better persons.

In this most sacred of week, the holy week, let us look to the cross because that cross is the symbol of what God can do for us if we remain faithful and believing.