The 2nd Sunday of Lent, Year A
Scriptures: Psalm 121; John 3:1-17
Key Verse: “The Lord will preserve you from all evil and will keep your life. The Lord will watch over your going out and coming in, from this time forth forevermore.” (Psalm 121:7-8)
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Hello, This is Jade.
Welcome to Yi.kigai
A space for all to explore the intersection between faith and daily life
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Have you ever said to your loved ones, "Promise me?” If you have, how desperately did you beg and hope for the promise to be kept wholeheartedly? Or have your loved ones desperately begged you and hoped for a promise that you needed to make and keep in the same manner?
You might have noticed the intensity of my questions. I’m thinking of situations in which making and keeping a promise isn’t taken lightly as if having a casual conversation. And accountability is desperately needed out of responsibility, respect, or love. I’m also thinking of situations in which a person somehow is no longer capable of making a promise or keeping it. Then what would we do?
There are several ways to say ‘promise’ in Chinese. The most well used by all ages is ‘dāyìng - 答應’ with two Chinese characters. The first character means respond, and the second one means fulfill. It literally means that I respond to your request which will be fulfilled. As I was listing those questions earlier, I thought of addiction, domestic violence, or catastrophic circumstances like war or natural disasters. In such circumstances, we make promises to our loved ones out of hope that they can be kept. There are times when promises can be made for the sake of having peace of mind, but whether the promise can be fulfilled is unknown to both parties. This is something I wish I could understand better when I was young.
My dad liked to brag that he didn’t drink, gamble, or smoke. Because of this, I was taught that all three weren’t morally good. The only alcoholic person I knew in my family was my aunt’s ex-husband. He couldn’t keep a job and physically abused my niece whenever he got drunk. There were a couple of years when my niece moved in and lived with us while my aunt restarted her life after divorcing him.
As a result, I had a lack of empathy towards people who struggled with alcohol addiction until I saw the 1994 movie, ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’. In the movie, I felt sorry for Megan Ryan, an alcoholic mother; her ex-husband; her new husband; her two children; and those who loved and cared about her. Everyone, including Megan, had to make an effort to help her walk on the path of physical and mental healing, which included the healing of her relationships with her loved ones.
I was grateful that I had opportunities to learn more about addictions by taking a couple of pastoral care related courses in seminary. As you might have known, the word ‘addiction’ etymologically means enslavement. It means that something like alcohol abuse could cause severe and potentially permanent brain damage and that alcoholic individuals exhibit an inability to self-regulate consumption of a substance.
Doesn’t it sound like our situation, being enslaved by sin that leads us to death as St. Paul said in Romans 6:20-23 and 7:15-25? He regrettably confessed that he didn’t understand his own actions and did the very things he hated for sin that dwells within him. So, what do we do, keep on sinning so that God can keep on forgiving? Of course not. Like Paul did, we regrettably confess our inability to self-regulate the total depravity of human nature while we hope the promises we make can be kept out of responsibility, respect, and love.
On our way back to God in Lent, it will take all the efforts of our siblings in Christ and ourselves on this healing path, the healing of our relationships with God and God’s people. Let us throw ourselves wholeheartedly into God’s saving and loving arms with the kind of trust stated in Psalm 121:7-8, “The Lord will preserve you from all evil and will keep your life. The Lord will watch over your going out and coming in, from this time forth forevermore.”
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May your coming week be blessed by God’s grace
As together we explore the intersection between faith and daily life
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