In the gospel reading that we hear this week, Jesus is warned that his life is in danger. This certainly is not news to him. Herod is out to get him. Yet, Jesus continues to care for and teach those who are with him. He must follow his vocation and in following it to seek salvation, he finds his strength. His life gains perspective. This is all part of God’s story of salvation. In his book born of the Nazi concentration camps, Viktor Frankl quotes Friedrich Nietzsche, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear with almost any ‘how’.” Jesus’ sense of purpose, his vocational sense, enabled him to face his fear of suffering and abandonment, trusting that his life had meaning and that God’s purposes for him were more enduring that Herod’s hatred.
May we have what it takes to not be afraid and the courage to respond with hope to the struggles of each new day.