Isaiah speaks today with words of deep consolation.

“In a time of favour I have answered you;
in a day of salvation I have helped you.”

God is not distant from suffering.
He names a time of rescue.

“I will make you as a covenant for the people…
to say to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’
to those who are in darkness, ‘Appear.’”

God sees His people as trapped and forgotten.
And He promises release.

Yet Zion says:

“The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.”

This is the cry of the wounded heart.

And God answers with one of the most tender lines in Scripture:

“Can a woman forget her nursing child…?
Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.”

God compares Himself to a mother.

This prepares us for the Gospel, where Jesus speaks about His authority.

“My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

He places Himself inside God’s saving action.

The healing He has done is not rebellion against the Sabbath.

It is the work of God continuing.

And this angers His listeners because it makes Him equal with God.

Jesus does not withdraw the claim. He deepens it.

“The Son can do nothing of his own accord,
but only what he sees the Father doing.”

Jesus does not act independently.
He acts in communion.

“For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing.”

Then Jesus speaks of life and judgment.

“As the Father raises the dead and gives them life,
so also the Son gives life to whom he will.”

Life is not only biological.
It is eternal.

“And he has given him authority to execute judgment.”

Judgment here is not condemnation.
It shows what belongs to life and what does not.

Jesus says:

“Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.”

Not will have. Has. Already.

Because eternal life begins with listening.

And this is where St Cyril of Jerusalem belongs.

Cyril was a bishop who spent much of his life teaching new Christians.

He prepared them for baptism.
He explained the Creed.
He opened the Scriptures.

He believed that hearing the word of Christ was the beginning of new life.

He called the Church a mother who gives birth in baptism.

And Isaiah uses the same image. “Can a woman forget her nursing child?”

God does not forget His people.
The Church does not abandon her children.

Cyril taught so that people would not feel forsaken
in a confusing world.

Jesus speaks today because people think God has forgotten them.

And He says: “My Father is working still.”

God is not absent.
He is active.

God is not silent.
He is speaking.

God is not finished.
He is giving life.

The danger is not that God forgets us.
It is that we stop listening.

Jesus says: “Do not marvel at this…an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice.”

The same voice that heals the sick man will raise the dead.

The same voice that speaks now will judge later.

And that judgment will be simple.

Those who have done good will rise to life.

Those who have chosen evil will rise to judgment.

Not because God is cruel.
But because truth must be named.

Isaiah promises that God will not forget His people.

Jesus reveals that God gives life through His Son.

Cyril reminds us that this life is taught, heard, and received in the Church.

Lent is the season for learning again how to listen.

Not to feelings.
Not to fear.

But to the voice that gives life.

We often say with Zion: “The Lord has forsaken me.”

Especially when prayers feel empty and suffering continues.

But the answer remains: “I will not forget you.”

And the proof of that promise is Christ Himself.

“My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

God works to free prisoners.
To raise the dead.
To teach the ignorant.
To gather the forgotten.

And He works through His Son and through His Church.

So the question today is not: Has God remembered me?

It is: Am I listening to Him?

Do I believe that His word gives life?

Do I trust that His judgment is just and His mercy real?

Isaiah says: You are not forgotten.

Jesus says: You are being given life.

Cyril says: Learn the faith so that you may live it.

And Lent says: Now is the time to hear the voice
that calls us out of darkness
into light.

Because God has not abandoned His people.

He has come among them.

And His voice
still gives life.