Endurance and change

Some people fight change.

In today’s first reading (Acts 6:8-15), people work to have Stephen executed on the charge of claiming that Jesus “will change the customs that Moses handed down to us.”

They would succeed in having Stephen killed, but they would fail in their objective: terrible changes would be forced upon them at the hands of the pagan Romans, while the faith of Jesus would spread across the world.

Change, of course, is part of life.

Some people fight change, while other people wallow in it: seeking always after the latest fad or newest trend and shedding all their yesterdays like a snake shedding its skin.

At the end, nothing is left: they have no life.

They sought only change and they are left with no substance: no meaning, nothing that will last.

In today’s Gospel (John 6:22-29), the Lord Jesus himself says,

Do not work for food that perishes
but for the food that endures for eternal life,
which the Son of Man will give you.

In our own lives, many things may seem uncertain and unstable, except perhaps the dark things of life which may seem to hang over us forever.

We should neither fear change nor lust for it.

Rather, we should always keep our focus on the Lord Jesus and on that which he gives us for eternal life: his love, his grace, his truth, and his presence – in word and in Sacrament.

Change happens.

But God is.