On a recent Sunday, we prayed with this opening prayer. “O God, strength of those who hope in you, graciously hear our pleas, and, since without you mortal frailty can do nothing, grant us always the help of your grace.” We are mortal beings. We will die. The great works that we think are so lasting will crumble into dust. This reality helps us to understand the prophet Ezekiel, who speaks of tears off a tender shoot from a lofty cedar and planting it in Israel. (Ez 17:22-24). The Babylonian Empire destroyed what seemed to be a lofty cedar, the nation of the Israelites. Yet God would take a tender shoot from the House of David, and long after the high tree of the Babylonian Empire was itself past history, that shoot will be Jesus and He will bear fruit that will span the ages.
For the past many years, I have been maintaining an internet ministry that allows me, through comment boxes, to listen in on the questions, complaints and pontifications of thousands of people in regard to religion. I have noticed that these commentaries sort themselves out in fairly predictable ways, centering around issues of God’s existence, the problem of suffering, the uniqueness of Christianity among the religions of the world, and the whole range of the Church’s sexual teachings.