We’ve just had this Gospel reading in the Sunday readings in the last couple of weeks, so I thought I’d touch on a few verses that I didn’t go into in that homily. And these are some of the most powerful words in Scripture for me, and always a challenge for me:
“But blessed are your eyes, because they see,
and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
longed to see what you see but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”
Sometimes we just overlook the blessing of every moment, don’t we? We might be in the midst of a really good time in our lives. We get to see new birth, restoration, healing, joy, laughter, and celebration. But in the midst of all that, we can in fact become jaded to it. Perhaps we even feel entitled to it and the blessing of it stops registering for us.
Or maybe we’re in the midst of a really lousy time. Maybe we are seeing death, degradation, sickness, brokenness, pain, weeping and grief. And we can be real angry about that, overlooking the care that is extended to us, from the kind words, to the thoughtful deeds, or even just the loving embrace. We miss the blessings of those hard times a lot.
But regardless, in every moment of every day, we get to see things and hear things that others have not been privileged to see and hear. We get to love and rejoice and persevere in whole new ways every single day. Whether the times are good or bad, the moments are always blessed by our God who walks with us through every experience. We have to take the time to see and hear those blessings, because the destruction of our soul that happens when we miss it is just irreparable. So many have longed to see and hear what we have seen and heard. Blessed are our eyes, blessed are our ears, blessed are we!