Readings: Acts 13:26-33; Psalm 2; John 14:1-6
In today’s Gospel, Jesus told His disciples “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” In other words, the heart may want to be agitated, disturbed, anxious or unsettled (tarassesthō), but do not give it permission (‘Do not let’ is ‘mē’ in Greek and it means something like “never permit, intentionally resist”).
What led to this?
Jesus told His disciples that He was going away and there were a million and one questions in their minds – how, when, why? They were already getting agitated and troubled.
He went further in order to teach them how to keep their minds serene. He said, “Trust in God still and trust in me.”
Okay, let us just pause here and apply today’s message.
There will always be a reason for our hearts to want to become troubled but Jesus says we should not permit it. He didn’t promise us an untroubled life but we can have an untroubled heart.
How?
He said “Trust in God still and trust in me.”
Trust that what?
Trust that God has got everything under control (this is the message of Paul to the Antiochians in today’s First Reading). We should trust that God cares enough and cares genuinely for us, that whatever He does or permits is for our good. Just as the going away of Jesus was to prepare a place for His followers, all His actions are for us. We are to trust that whatever we are going through will have an end someday. Our troubles are short-lived, for we have a place with Him where our night shall be turned to day, where glory shall fill our souls and joy shall replace our sorrows.
On this day when we recall the apparition of our Lady of Fatima, let us ask our Blessed Mother to teach us to trust God just as she did, so that in quietness and total trust, we may find peace and the solution to every crisis that we may be facing.
Sermon preached by Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Baraka-Gukena Okami on May 13, 2022