[ Today's Readings ]
At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them
because they were troubled and abandoned,
like sheep without a shepherd.
The LORD loves us. He hates to see us lost and wandering. This is why he comes to cure every disease and illness. It isn't so much the diseases themselves that are the problem. Rather, it is the way in which disease wounds the heart and makes those who suffer it question the love of God. It is the way that it makes us feel troubled and abandoned that he most wants to heal.
When we feel lost and abandoned by the one true God we turn to idols. We turn to things that we can control. If God doesn't want to help we'll find a way to more directly do it ourselves. But this is an illusion.
They have mouths but speak not;
they have eyes but see not;
They have ears but hear not;
they have noses but smell not.
The things which are in our power are insufficient. They can't bring us the healing we desire. And yet we keep going back to them just as Israel continually returns to Egypt in its heart while journeying through the desert.
How long will they be unable to attain
innocence in Israel?
If our hearts are in Egypt are bodies follow. It is only a matter of time before our sin and our failure to put God first makes us slaves of the sins and the idols which we do put first.
He shall still remember their guilt
and punish their sins;
they shall return to Egypt.
This is not what God desires. When Jesus sees us struggling in this way he comes to us with a healing that cannot come from the prince of demons. It is a power like nothing that has ever been seen in Israel. It is enough to love us amazed and in awe. Jesus wants to be our shepherd. He does not want to leave the heart of any sheep feeling abandoned. When we know the comfort of the rod and the staff of the good shepherd, when we rest beside still waters, and when we receive from the banquet he sets before us, the temptations to idolatry lose the persuasive power.
Jesus offers us the knowledge of his love and care as an antidote for our sinful inclinations. He wants to shape our own hearts to have the same care for others. He wants us to be concerned that the harvest not be neglected. He calls us to be attentive to the lost and abandoned. He asks us to ask him (and therefore to desire) laborers for the harvest. More than anything else, he wants all the sheep of the world to come to know and believe in the love God bears them.
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him (see First John 4:16).
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