Jacob refers to the place of his encounter as the gateway to heaven. Two persons in the gospel are miraculously healed. Where do you encounter the gateway to heaven? Readings for Today.
Gateway to Heaven
I was struck in today’s first reading with the phrase that Jacob decided that the place he was on was the gateway to heaven. And that phrase just struck me, “gateway to heaven.” And then when we think of the gospel reading, we see two individuals who are looking for the gateway to heaven. There is the official who comes forward because his daughter has died, and there is the woman who has been suffering for 18 years with hemorrhages.
And it got me to thinking that in so many aspects, our world is looking for the gateway to heaven. But kind of like Jacob, they don’t know, they weren’t aware, they don’t know where to find it. And so they look in all kinds of ways and in all kinds of areas to seek it, but they look in the wrong places.
Now one of the most dramatic areas of seeing a gateway to heaven, of course, is when we come to Mass. This is the gateway to heaven because this is the place where heaven and earth join in the sacred liturgy. But we know that we live in a world that desperately needs to know that there is a gateway to heaven, that there is a Savior who wishes himself to be known and who loves us and who cares for us.
There is much brokenness in the world, and there is even brokenness in our own lives. We find ourselves searching for the gateway to heaven because so many of us have circumstances or situations or people we love and care about who are in need. Now we have been talking about the virtue of hope, and in today’s gospel we get a perfect example of what it is. It is this official.
He admits that his daughter has just died, “but come lay your hand on her and she will live.” There’s a confident assurance that he knows that Jesus not only is a good person, but that he is the type of person who can raise his daughter from the dead. It’s pretty amazing and pretty outstanding, but there is a confidence that he has that Jesus saves. There is this virtue of hope.
How often is it though when we present what Jesus can do that we too are ridiculed? That’s what happened to Jesus. He makes a statement. The girl is not dead. She is just sleeping, and they ridicule him. We can be finding ourselves in today’s world being ridiculed for believing in God, for trusting in God.
I have a friend. We talk about a lot of different issues. We agree on some things and we profoundly disagree on others, but one of his challenges when it comes to faith is that he has to rely on someone else’s experience of God. He very much is a person that wants to see and touch and realize things.
Now he doesn’t ridicule me for my own faith, but it is an interesting way in which he sees the world. What is it that you need from God today? What is it that you need and wish that God would do for you today? Come to the gateway of heaven, and God will make you whole.
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