Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture speaking to us about the wonders of God’s love for us all, His beloved people. God has blessed all those who are faithful to Him, and provided for the needs of those who trusted Him and placed their focus on Him. The Lord saved Noah and his family through the great Ark and He also saved the blind man from His predicament, by restoring the sight which that man had lost earlier.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, first of all we heard from the Book of Genesis, the account of how the Great Flood wiped all lives from the whole earth, except for all those that Noah and his family gathered in the great Ark. The Lord kept them safe from harm and protected them from danger. The Ark floated through the storm and the flood until the flood started to recede, and all of the survivors went on to repopulate the earth. This was God’s promise of love and salvation to all those who have been faithful to Him.

God then promised His people that He will never destroy them with flood again, and showed His promise with the rainbow, that appeared every time a great rain falls on the earth. Ultimately, this reminds us of the fact that God loves each and every one of us, and He does not wish or desire for our destruction and suffering. All those who have perished during the Great Flood was caused by their own disobedience against God, their wickedness and sins.

God did not condemn the people to hell and destruction, but instead, the people of God themselves have consciously rejected God’s love and His generous offer of mercy and forgiveness. God has given all of them many opportunities, chances after chances for them to repent from their sins and to turn away from their disobedience. However, they still chose to be tempted and to disobey God regardless of the consequences of their sinful ways.

Yet, even with all of those attitudes, God still wants to help us all, out of His ever great love for each and every one of us. He extends His mercy and love, and He wants to touch us and heal us, in body, mind and soul, just as He stretched out His hands in order to heal the blind man. The blind man, who must have suffered from his blindness, was completely cured from his condition, and he could see once again.

We can only imagine just how joyful the man must have been, at the very moment when he was able to see light once again, in a world once filled with darkness and despair, that light piercing through his vision, allowing him to see clearly once again must have been such an unimaginably joyful experience for the blind man. That is exactly what each and every one of us experience when we are freed from sin, and receive from God the gift of faith and everlasting life.

Once, we have been sinners and we have disobeyed God, but God in His rich and wondrous mercy gave us a new lease of life, and a new hope when we were in the depth of darkness. He has blessed us with all these things because He loves each one of us very tenderly and greatly, that He has given us His only begotten Son, as Our Saviour, and Christ has suffered and died for us all on the cross, for the sake of our salvation.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, the question for us is that, are we able to love God and dedicate ourselves in the same manner as God has done for us all these while? Are we able to commit ourselves to love God with all of our hearts, minds and with all of our strength just as He has done, in His great patience and compassion, although we have constantly sinned against Him? We are called to love God and to serve Him, from now on. Let us all turn towards Him, and devote ourselves to Him with all of our abilities from now on, and always. Amen.