God has His own schedule

The bible readings today are very encouraging. There is a very important verse in the first reading which is taken from the Book of Wisdom. It is unfortunate for Martin Luther to reject this book and removed it from the canon of the Bible because the book was written in Greek. This book is not found in Protestant Bibles. Therefore, some important revelations are missing. In short, the Protestant Bible is incomplete.
The important verse I mentioned above is important because it tells us that God does not want us, not even a single one of us, to perish. Thus, we derive the confidence that God will save us all, even the worst sinners among mankind. It reads,
Do not invite death by the error of your life, nor bring on destruction by the works of your hands;
because God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living (Wisdom 1:12-13).
We are held responsible for whatever we do. In the beginning, death was not in the original plan of God. Ever since sins entered the scene, death and destruction entered as well. They are the consequences of our "error of life". We are held responsible for our own errors. We will receive punishment, but God will not let us die, not even one of us. But isn't death a certainty for all human? True, but there is a worse death than the death of our physical body, viz. spiritual death which could take place even before our physical death. We may not understand how God will deliver us from spiritual death but we are confident that God will.

The Gospel reading today is even more encouraging. Fr. Martin helped us realize our own attitude towards our spiritual life and in particular, our prayers. Do we pray for our needs or for God's will? We should be able to draw the appropriate answer from the twin miracles in the gospel today.
A bleeding woman had suffered for twelve years. Just think about it, what would her prayers be in these twelve years? Common sense would tell us that she must have been praying for her recovery which probably would be the only thing she prayed for. Was not such a humble request a reasonable one? How could God not make her recover. Therefore, for twelve years, God had not answered her, had disappointed her. Yet, she kept praying. How great her faith was! And yet, God has His own schedule.
Suppose this miracle happened during Jesus' first year of ministry. Which means the bleeding woman started praying for her recovery when Jesus was only 18. Jesus must have heard her prayers and have compassion for her suffering. Jesus might even be able to experience her pains. Yet, the only thing Jesus could do was to wait patiently for 12 more years before helping her. To quote John, his hour has not yet come (John 2:4c). God has His own schedule.
In fact, the bleeding woman was not suffering the longest. According to John, Jesus healed a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years (John 5:5). This long duration of torture had probably eroded the faith of this man or his friends such that nobody was at his side to help him into Bethzatha, a pool in Jerusalem, to be healed. He did not need to go into the pool. Jesus healed him. God has His own schedule.
It has been 23 years since the June 4 crackdown in 1989. Perhaps Hong Kong is the only remaining Chinese city in the world in which memorial service is still held annually. I have not heard of reports of such memorial services for quite a number of years in USA or Europe to where most of the students dissidents have fled. In recent years, there are an increasing number of mainlanders coming to Hong Kong to join the memorial service. Moreover, many participants are teenagers. These are encouraging signs. I am sure God has His own schedule to terminate one-party dictatorship in Communist China.

The twin miracles in the gospel reading today were in fact sandwich miracles. Before the bleeding woman appeared, Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, came to beg Jesus to heal his daughter who was dying. Jesus went along but was delayed by the bleeding woman. Consequently, he arrived too late. The girl had died. How devastated would Jairus be! Had the bleeding woman not appeared, Jesus would have had enough time to heal his daughter who would not have died! God had not heard his prayer and disappointed him. Most probably Jairus was a Pharisee because he was a ruler of the synagogue. He had to put away the official Pharisee line, his enmity against Jesus. He had to put down his dignity to kneel before Jesus. All his efforts were wasted. How frustrating!  But God would not serve the first one who came. God has His own schedule. What is more, God would not let the girl die! God is not God of the dead, but of the living (Mark 12:27a). From this story, I am more confident that God shall not give up even a single one of us. He shall not allow us to die spiritually.
If God shall bring us to eternal life whatever we do, then why should we do good? Why not indulge ourselves in sins and enjoy?
I would say that acting morally in itself is good. God has given each one of us enough grace to do good things. We should not waste it in making errors of life.

For how many times has God not heard our prayers and frustrated us? Keep in mind that God has His own schedule. There is a time for everything, a time to be born and a time to die (Ecclesiastes 3:2). Therefore, pray to seek the will of God, not our needs. With the confident hope in eternal life, we continue to make good use of the talentum that God gives us to enrich ourselves on earth.

Dear Lord, Your will be done on earth. Amen.