I Will Never Forget You: From Exile to Eternal Life

In the depths of exile and despair, God whispers: “I will never forget you”—a promise fulfilled in Christ’s life-giving love.

First Reading

Isaiah 49:8-15

Thus says the LORD:
In a time of favor I answer you,
on the day of salvation I help you;
and I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people,
To restore the land
and allot the desolate heritages,
Saying to the prisoners: Come out!
To those in darkness: Show yourselves!
Along the ways they shall find pasture,
on every bare height shall their pastures be.
They shall not hunger or thirst,
nor shall the scorching wind or the sun strike them;
For he who pities them leads them
and guides them beside springs of water.
I will cut a road through all my mountains,
and make my highways level.
See, some shall come from afar,
others from the north and the west,
and some from the land of Syene.
Sing out, O heavens, and rejoice, O earth,
break forth into song, you mountains.
For the LORD comforts his people
and shows mercy to his afflicted.

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.”
Can a mother forget her infant,
be without tenderness for the child of her womb?
Even should she forget,
I will never forget you.

Gospel

John 5:17-30

Jesus answered the Jews: “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God.

Jesus answered and said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for what he does, the Son will do also. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes. Nor does the Father judge anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation, but has passed from death to life. Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to the Son the possession of life in himself. And he gave him power to exercise judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, because the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation.

“I cannot do anything on my own; I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”

Our Anchor in Darkness: God’s Unforgetting Love

What is our anchor in times of darkness, our refuge in waves of despair? The global crises of the modern world mirror the tumultuous disruptions experienced by Judah in the sixth century BC. Once the epitome of wisdom and order under King Solomon, drawing Gentile admirers like the Queen of Sheba, Jerusalem and the First Temple were destroyed and burned by the Neo-Babylonian Empire centuries later. Idolatry, social injustices, and covenant breaking crippled Judah from within, leading to her downfall and captivity. Forcibly deported to Babylon, thousands of exiles faced cultural assimilation pressures, loss of homeland, and uncertainty, leading to psalms and laments. 

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.”
Can a mother forget her infant,
be without tenderness for the child of her womb?
Even should she forget,
I will never forget you.

Isaiah 49:14-15

When all seems lost in the material and geopolitical spheres, spiritual truth rises to the fore, the ultimate refuge of the forsaken. What should have been cherished in times of prosperity now becomes the only life raft in the sea of chaos and death. Stripped of her former glory, Judah laments her destruction, crying out to the Lord who seems to have abandoned her. But the Lord, like a mother, answers with tender words of kindness and mercy, sheltering her children in her secure embrace. The prophecy in Isaiah anticipates relief through the rise of the Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great, who defeated Babylon in 539 BC and allowed the Jews to return and rebuild, fulfilling promises of a “time of favor” (Isaiah 49:8).

Jesus as Fulfillment: The Father and Son at Work as One

John presents Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promise. Closer to his Father than a child in its mother’s womb, Christ, the Son of God and “the firstborn over all creation” (Colossians 1:15), restores all things to the Father. The actions of the Father and the Son are one: 

• “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work” (John 5:17)
• “the Son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for what he does, the Son will do also” (John 5:19)
• “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes” (John 5:21)
• “Nor does the Father judge anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father” (John 5:22)

Since action follows being, Jesus testifies that he and the Father are one: “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God” (Nicene Creed). His first-century listeners did not connect the dots; indeed, the Church Fathers took another three centuries to understand Jesus’ claim of co-equal divinity (325 AD at the Council of Nicaea). 

From the Cry of Forsakenness to Eternal Life

As the firstborn son of Israel, Jesus fulfills the longing of God’s people in the psalms and lamentations of Isaiah. In sorrow and agony on the cross, Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1) Bearing the sin of the whole world, Christ offered his life to restore creation: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46).

Christ’s death in his humanity unleashed eternal life in his divinity: “For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to the Son the possession of life in himself” (John 5:26).