Twenty-Eight Sunday in Ordinary Time
I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “hindsight is 20/20” before. It means looking back with perfect 20/20 vision, it’s always a little more evident what the smartest or best way to go about something would have been, had we only known then what we know now. I think we’d all agree that this year we can flip that around and make t-shirts that say “I can’t wait until 2020 is in hindsight!” What a year. And it’s only October.
What calamities await us before the end of the year? The great 2020 Turkey shortage for Thanksgiving? Santa having to quarantine and not being able to stuff stockings until mid-January? The New Year’s Eve ball in Times’ Square getting stuck halfway down the pole at 11:59, trapping us in 2020 forever?
Well at least it’s an election year. Oh wait, definitely not a hopeful pivot point… Have you noticed that everyone seems to be longing for the day when they can say “Behold the vaccine, to which we looked to save us!” or “Behold the politician, to whom we looked to save us!”? or “Behold, the second stimulus check!” “Once that day comes, our troubles will be no more! Everything will be right with the world again and we can go back to normal!”
Understandable hopes to be sure, though a bit misplaced. In this Sunday’s First Reading, we hear about the mountain of the LORD, where God will do amazing things like destroy death forever and wipe away the tears from every face. And it describes the people on that day saying, “Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us! This is the LORD for whom we looked; let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!”
They’ve got the right idea. There’s nothing wrong with hoping for a vaccine or a politician to help do some good, but if we’re putting all our hope in the things of this world, what happens when those things disappoint us? In some situations, things that we hope for end up making things worse! But if we look to God and place our hope in the things of the Kingdom, and in that heavenly reality that awaits us, we certainly won’t be disappointed, and we might even find peace to help us make it through this life and have an impact on the world while we’re at it. I don’t know about you, but putting my hope and trust in the LORD, which still isn’t easy, is just about the only thing that makes sense in 2020.
So, whatever is stressing you out this week, whether it’s navigating hybrid classes on Zoom, trying to pay the bills, deciding who to vote for, or anything else, put your hope in the LORD first. And when 2020 is finally in hindsight, you can look back on it as, among other things, the year you finally learned to trust him.
