Readings for the Day:
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Avatar: The Last Airbender focuses on Aang, who is both the Avatar and the last Airbender. In Aang’s world, there are four nations centered around benders, people who control one of the four elements: Water, Earth, Fire, Air. Unlike other benders, the Avatar can actually control all four elements. The Fire Nation, trying to control the world, took out all the Airbender. Aang, while traveling, gets trapped in ice, much like Captain America, and is woken a hundred years later.
The Fire Nation is now an empire, and the crown prince, Zuko, is told that unless he finds the Avatar, he cannot return home. When he discovers Aang, the two have several run-ins.
Eventually Aang makes some mistakes while trying to cure his friends and falls into the hands of other members of the Fire Nation. Without Aang, Zuko won’t have his key back into the Fire Nation, so he does the unthinkable. He adopts a disguise as “the Blue Spirit”, fights his way into the stronghold of his own nation, and helps set Aang free.
Even as his enemy, Zuko helped Aang in his time of need. Zuko helped Aang, even though it was out of his own self interests.
As Jesus says today, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” We could say the same about Zuko with Aang. If Zuko, an enemy, is willing to help Aang in his time of need, how much more will God be there for us in our need?
God shows how true these statements are through the life of the Prophet Hosea. God calls on Hosea to marry a woman they both know will be unfaithful to the prophet. Through this marriage, God gives Israel a living example of the Lord’s relationship with them. Though she does wrong by him time and time again, Hosea keeps coming back. He remains faithful to her, even when she’s not to him.
If Hosea was willing to do this for his wife, how much more is God willing to do the same for us? That is the point of this marriage. Hosea’s wife Gomer represents Israel who has been unfaithful to the Lord. Yet God out of love, just like Hosea, remains faithful to His chosen people. The Lord has remained faithful to us and continues to seek after us as well, even when we are unfaithful to God, time and time again.
Ultimately and thankfully, God is there to restore and forgive us, as we hear throughout our Psalm today. This is the point of Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross. Though we made ourselves enemies to God through our actions and through our literal enmity against Jesus, as we remember as members of the crowd in the Passion reading on Palm Sunday: the Sunday of the Passion, God was still willing to do the work to bring us back to Him, even at the expense of His own life. Though we killed Him, God used His death to restore us to life and relationship with Him.
If someone like Zuko can find it in his heart, even through self interest, to help his enemy out in time of need, how much more will God do the same for us? God shows His willingness to love us and provide what we need time and time again in Scripture. We see this in the life and marriage of Hosea to Gomer, and the representation that union provides of God’s relationship with Israel. We see it all the more in Jesus’ death on the Cross. That is the extent of God’s love for us.
At one point in their escape, Aang comes to realize that Zuko is his rescuer. He has the choice to leave Zuko or save him. He chooses the later. When we realize God’s love for us, how will we show that love in the world? When we realize God’s forgiveness will we, as said in the Lord’s Prayer, forgive others too? Will we do the same as Jesus and follow our Lord?