Where is God? This is so often the question of the many people in the modern world. A world in which we hear in the news of violence, suffering, wars throughout the world. Where is God? The cry of those who do not believe and yet are weighted down by anxieties, broken relationships, the cares of their personal lives.
Where is God? This was the cry, too, of the Jewish nation in exile two thousand five hundred years ago, when the Temple was razed to the ground, Jerusalem’s walls breached, palaces and homes destroyed. Everything taken away from them, forced to live in Babylon. The hopes and dreams of the Hebrew people lay in ruins. They longed for their homeland, for their God. They had become a broken people and they knew it was their own fault.
Where is God? In our first reading we hear that the Hebrews are restored to the land of their fathers; they were able to build the Temple and the city anew and reformed their religion. But their true restoration was incomplete. By the time God sent his only Son many of the Jew would not listen. They had become self-sufficient and had no need to listen to the words of a man from Galilee. Jesus words, that I am the way, the truth and the life was to hard for them to accept.
Where is God? In our second reading we hear St. Paul repeat the claim: “God raised us up with him and gave us a place with him in heaven, in Christ Jesus… We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life.” In other words, God’s work of restoration, which Israel had sought after, was finally completed in Jesus’ coming here on Earth. And we are part of that restoration.
Our salvation comes in the first instance from our true belief in Christ; and Christ does the rest through the Holy Spirit who is poured into our hearts. This belief makes all the difference in our life, if it is the fundamental belief of our faith. If we truly accept it and listen to the words of Jesus’ we will have no need to ask the question “Where is God”.
The Jews in the time of Jesus would not listen and so many people today will not listen. Is it pointless asking the question, “Where is God?” if we are not prepared to listen for an answer. “Everyone who believes me will have eternal life” is the answer of Jesus, the Redeemer of the world. In hearing him we are hearing the voice of the living God. The question is not` “Where is God, but Will we learn to listen”?