[ Today's Readings ]
We tend to wish that this life was just births, planting, healing, building, laughing, dancing, gathering, embracing, seeking, keeping, sewing, speaking, loving and peace.
Our toil would seem much more advantageous were this so.
But dying, uprooting, healing, killing, tearing down, weeping, mourning, scattering, being far from embraces, losing casting away, rending, silence, hate, and war are part of this life we have.
It is not that these things are good. But they are facts. How can there be any advantage to our toil in such a world? The good things seem only to build us up so that the hard things can tear us down even more. But the timeless is hidden in our hearts by God. Something within points the way to that which can never be shaken or torn down.
We hear, "But who do you say that I am?"
A voice from the center of our beings answers, "The Christ of God."
The answer is not from flesh and blood. Rather it is from the timeless God places in our hearts. It is revealed to us by the Father. And when we know this one timeless thing it makes sense out of all of the times and seasons of life.
He said, “The Son of Man must suffer greatly
and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.”
There is a time to suffer for Jesus himself suffers. There is a time to die for Jesus himself dies. But these things are mere preludes to the resurrection. They lead to the birth after which there is no death, the life which cannot be killed. Our own sufferings come to share in the suffering of Jesus. They have meaning because they are leading to the last day. Time itself is an arrow pointed toward eternity.
Blessed be the LORD, my rock,
my mercy and my fortress,
my stronghold, my deliverer,
My shield, in whom I trust.
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