(Audio)
For if the mighty deeds done in your midst
had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes.
Jesus tells us that to whom much has been given much will be expected (see Luke 12:48). We who have known the mighty transformative power of the grace and love of Christ are thereby obligated to live for his kingdom.
and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised (see Second Corinthians 5:15).
So has Jesus made a difference in our hearts? Are our lives different because we know him? If so, are they just different for us or are we returning the love Jesus gives us in worship and in love of neighbor? He loves, including performing mighty deeds, to provoke our own love. He warms cold hearts of stone with the fire of his own love not simply so that those hearts will be comfortable but so that they themselves will catch fire with his own love.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire (see Matthew 3:11).
I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! (see Luke 12:49).
We are drawn up for the waters that were meant to destroy us. In baptism we receive spiritually what was for Moses a mere physical salvation.
"I drew him out of the water."
Mary is our mother who nurses us spiritually after we are drawn from the water. Like Moses we are meant to be zealous against the forces of spiritual darkness in Egypt and to long for justice and unity to prevail amongst the spiritual Israel of God's Church.
But Moses fled from him and stayed in the land of Midian.
The temptation is to run for a destiny to lofty and exalted for any mere man or woman. Yet if it is a destiny to which we are called by God there then let us go forth by his strength to share his love with all those who are oppressed.
See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
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