Dear Brothers and Sisters,
If you read a little before today’s gospel in the Bible, you will see that all the families were bringing their lambs to the temple to be sacrificed so that they could eat them on the Passover. Through this scene our Lord is telling us that we are called to be lambs, to be sheep. To be Christ is the only mission that we have in our lives. We are called to be Christians, to be lambs led by the Good Shepherd.
The Lord says something very deep and strong today: you are not my sheep. He said this to the people in the temple praying, not to the tax collectors and prostitutes; he said to the people in the temple: you are not my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
He also uses a beautiful expression: the sheep are in the Father’s hand. What does that mean to be in his hand? How do you know if you are in the hands of the Father? Is it because you pray a lot, not really. You are in the hands of the Lord when you do his will. I cannot be in the hands of the Lord and be doing my own will. When I am in the hands of the Lord, I am doing his will because he is leading me where he wants me to go, and I accept that he is leading me.
From the moment of our baptism, we are called to be Christian, which means to be anointed like Christ for the mission to give our lives like a lamb. Do you want to be in the hands of the Lord? This is what it means to be in his hands: to allow yourself to be led, to be sacrificed and to not resist evil.
For a sacrifice to be valid, for our Christianity to be true and our faith to be true, it is necessary to not oppose the will of God, to not oppose offering ourselves. A lamb doesn’t kick, doesn’t resist, doesn’t say, no, no, no. It doesn’t resist dying. On the contrary, it enters like a lamb. Isaiah says, like a lamb led to the slaughter. We are called to enter the cross. This is the mission that the Lord gives us.
Those in the temple said to Jesus, when are you going to act. Tell us clearly, are you the Messiah or not? How long will you keep us waiting? We can have this same attitude with the Lord. When are you going to act in my life? When will you change my spouse, or my son, or my parents? When will you get me that raise? Show me that you really are the Messiah. Tell me clearly and show me with deeds. We can have this attitude which means we are not in the hands of the Father.
Jesus also says that no one can take me out of the hands of the Father. To be in his hands is to know that doing the Father’s will gives you joy and peace, and eternal life, as the gospel says today. It would be stupid then to leave the hands of the Lord because you experience eternal joy when you are with him. It is something wonderful.
In the section before the gospel it say that it was winter and the feast of the Dedication of the temple. It is a small detail, but it can help us today, because the winter means darkness, cold. Perhaps you feel like your life is in the season of winter and you need the sun to come out. The sun is Christ. These days of spring can be cold when the sun doesn’t come out. When it is sunny it can easily become too warm. The other day when there were clouds and it was raining, was the sun there? Absolutely, the sun rises every day, but at times the clouds prevent us from seeing this good news, which is the love of God, so that the warmth of Jesus Christ does not reach our lives. Clouds make it cold and sad.
Latinos are more cheerful because of their climate; they came from places where there’s a lot of sun. Go to Finland, or Sweden or even Germany and the people there are cold. Most of the day they don’t see the sun in the winter, only for a few hours. The same thing happens with our faith. If you are surrounded by clouds your life can be bitter, cold, resigned and a Christian is a happy man. It is true that at times there are clouds, but remember that above the clouds there is the sun. Remember that above your sins, above your problems, above your winter is always Jesus Christ who is risen and has the power to give you eternal life.