28 January 2014 - familiar sound

28 January 2014 - familiar sound

And looking around at those seated in the circle he said,
“Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of God
is my brother and sister and mother.”

The LORD looks at us as we gather round him.  He looks into our eyes and tells us that we are his family.  We are here with him to hear him say this because we want to do the will of God.  Only in his presence can this become a reality for us.  We can't do the will of God apart from him.  "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (cf. Rom 3:22).  This world is marked by darkness and death.  Honesty makes us concede that darkness and death mark our own hearts as well.  They taint all we do in ways large and small.   To really love as we are meant to love is supernatural.  We cannot do it on our own.  But we are never meant to do so. 

From the beginning God intends us to rely on him for everything.  The Trinity is love.  It is in fact the only love.  There is nothing in human flesh (cf. Rom 7:18) to bridge the gap of selfishness keeping us locked inside ourselves.  But God is by definition selfless love for other that cannot be chained.  That is why "everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God" (cf. 1 Joh. 4).  Only in the Trinity is there a bridge to unite that which otherwise remains separate.  This is the truth that sets us free (cf. Joh. 8:32).

David has some prophetic sense of what it means to be in God's presence in this way.  We may imagine that as he is before the ark he sees a dim vision of Jesus saying that he "is my brother and sister and mother".  We may imagine that the joy of the whole crowd is the joy that the communion of love, which God is, and which he bestows on his family.
Then David, girt with a linen apron,
came dancing before the LORD with abandon,
as he and all the house of Israel were bringing up the ark of the LORD
with shouts of joy and to the sound of the horn.

And since communion with God is what Israel celebrates it should not surprise us that they conclude the celebration with a sacred meal.

He then distributed among all the people,
to each man and each woman in the entire multitude of Israel,
a loaf of bread, a cut of roast meat, and a raisin cake.
With this, all the people left for their homes.

They go there separate ways but they are now united.  Jesus has looked around "at those seated in the circle" and called them family. 

Let us open our gates and reach up our lintels to make way for the king of glory.  His strength is enough to reach down from heaven.  He is mighty enough to unite our human nature to his divine nature. 

The LORD, strong and mighty,
the LORD, mighty in battle.

It is he who calls us family.  It is he who calls us friends.  If we cannot spend every waking second before the ark we can nevertheless leave for our homes living an ever more profound communion with him and with our brothers and sisters.