[ Today's Readings ]
But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me."
Can a mother forget her infant,
be without tenderness for the child of her womb?
The paralytic Jesus healed yesterday might have been tempted to believe that the LORD had forgotten him. The woman who had a hemorrhage for twelve years and endured much at the hands of physicians without recovering might have felt forsaken. Many of us feel like prisoners in darkness, many hunger and thirst. Yet none of us are forsaken by the LORD.
Even should she forget,
I will never forget you.
The Father has given the Son life the possession of life in himself. This is not something that humans have. Rather, we have life on loan. We know that there is a countdown that begins when the first breath is drawn and it continues inexorably until the last. Without the fruit of the tree of life we inevitable experience dying and death. Are we not forsaken? No! Even though it was mankind's own sinfulness that earned our exile from the garden and the punishment of death God does not abandon us. All of the sickness, suffering, and sorrow of human history is not something God wants for us. He allows us to choose it but even then he does not leave us there.
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word
and believes in the one who sent me
has eternal life and will not come to condemnation,
but has passed from death to life.
Let us hear the words of Jesus. Let us believe that he is sent by the Father with the power to restore and set right all that has gone so very wrong. We learn from this belief that we are loved beyond anything we have any right to expect. Even dead in our sins the LORD still loves us more than a mother loves her newborn. May we experience the freedom that the knowledge of that love can bring even amidst our present hardships and afflictions.
The LORD is faithful in all his words
and holy in all his works.
The LORD lifts up all who are falling
and raises up all who are bowed down.
No comments:
Post a Comment