15 July 2016 - mercy and not sacrifice

[ Today's Readings ]

The LORD does what he does because he cares for us. This is true even when it doesn't seem that way to us.

We think that when we experience pain it means that the LORD does not love us. Perhaps we begin to wonder what we did wrong that turned the LORD's anger against us. We think that he does not love us now they way he did when we felt better.

O LORD, remember how faithfully and wholeheartedly
I conducted myself in your presence,
doing what was pleasing to you!”
And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

We need to remember that the LORD hears our prayers and sees our tears. He desires to heal us where we need it most. The trouble is that where we most need healing isn't always where we think we do. Maybe an illness can shake us out of self-reliance and into greater surrender and obedience to God. Maybe suffering can help delusion us of putting to much hope in the impermanent things here belong.

However our particular brokenness manifests, the LORD desires to heal us. He wants us more fully in his presence. He calls us into his temple after three days. The three days are symbolically the passion of Christ transforming us and healing us. The place where we most experience the "poultice of figs" helping us to recover is in the sacraments of the Church. It is within the Church more than anywhere else that the shadows are cast back and the sun shines in full radiance.

We can't understand the laws apart from this understanding of God's desire to heal us. We have to remember that he has no need of us. He has no need of our obedience. He is perfectly happy before all creation simply in the fullness of Trinitarian life. He creates us for our sake. He gives us free will and law for our sake. They are perverted and misunderstood when they are seen as ends which can be set separately and at odds from the good of man. Yet if we try to understand the law ourselves apart from God we do end up using it in evil comparisons and judgments of others. We use it to build ourselves and to tear others down. Trying to deal with the law apart from relationship with the one who gives it fails because their is no way to see the purpose for which it is given. It should not be so for us who know the lawgiver.

I say to you, something greater than the temple is here.
If you knew what this meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
you would not have condemned these innocent men.
For the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath.

The LORD desires to heal us. He will find these areas of our hearts which are so in need of healing. We might imagine that finding them would make him angry and withdraw his law. We might imagine that is what the suffering we experience means. But it is not. He finds them in order to save our lives so we shall not die, as the psalmist sings.

Those live whom the LORD protects;
yours is the life of my spirit.
You have given me health and life.