Heb 6:10-20 / Mk 2:23-28
With each passing year, the inclination to say that life is short becomes ever more irresistible. One year seems hardly begun when we find ourselves facing the countdown for Christmas and then the beginning of another new year. “How did I get this old this fast?” we ask. “Where did the time go? How did our kids get so big, and where did they learn that?”
That’s one side of our experience. But there is another side. The years, which supposedly pass us by so quickly, have so many parts and pieces, so many minutes, hours and days in which duty summons us again and again to rise to the challenges of our many vocations as human beings and followers of Jesus. In the face of the full weight of those challenges, the clock can seem to move very slowly at times, and we can grow weary and even despair.
St. Paul knew this experience well in his own life. He knew what it meant to grow tired and to experience sadness at his own lack of progress. So, lest we despair, he reminds us in today’s epistle that we have in Jesus a sure and certain hope, an anchor amidst the winds that might blow us off course and cause us to lose our way. While Jesus is no longer visible to earthly eyes, He is with us always, and we can do all things in Him Who is our strength.