14 July 2016 - come to me

[ Today's Readings ]

We conceived and writhed in pain,
giving birth to wind;
Salvation we have not achieved for the earth,
the inhabitants of the world cannot bring it forth.

We can't rely on ourselves to bring forth salvation. When we try to give birth to the new world we desire we instead give birth to the wind yet with all the pains of childbirth. This is not worth the effort. It does have one positive effect though. Or at least it can. It can teach us to look to the LORD for his way and his judgments. It helps us to make his name and his title the desire of our souls. It teaches our souls to yearn for him in the night and our spirits to keep vigil for him within us. In this way the world's inhabitants learn justice. It is not a justice which we ourselves can create, "for it is you who have accomplished all we have done."

It helps us to hear the invitation.

Jesus said:
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

This begs the question of us: Is the yoke we bear easy? Is the burden light? If not, the invitation is clear: "Come to me". Do we labor? Are we burdened? Hear him say, "Come to me". He offers us rest from all the striving we do apart from him. In him we do not necessarily find success according to a worldly measure. After all he is the one whose victory is the cross. We do not find something which is easy in the way the world imagines easy. What we do find is that in union with him the world's ideas of easy and successful are relatived. United with Jesus we have a peace that transcends any of the sufferings and momentary afflictions we face. The problem is when we bear burdens on our own apart from him. The work he has for us is only possible in union with him. We live out the dying of the cross in our lives. But united with him the resurrection is already made present in us as well.

But your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise;
awake and sing, you who lie in the dust.
For your dew is a dew of light,
and the land of shades gives birth.

His Spirit lives in us and gives us life even now when we allow him to do so.

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you (see Romans 8:11).

We are able to take up our cross precisely because of the resurrection power of Jesus in us. This power frees us from slavery to fear, especially fear of death. His Spirit transforms his cross and death into resurrection and new life. Let us hear his invitation to come to him and rest. Let us be open to a more full anointing of that Spirit today.

“The LORD looked down from his holy height,
from heaven he beheld the earth,
To hear the groaning of the prisoners,
to release those doomed to die.”

or