10 November 2019 - to Him all are alive

Today's Readings

(Audio)

and he is not God of the dead, but of the living,
for to him all are alive.

We tend to place human limitations on God when we think about him. We imagine he is bound by time and space in the same ways that way are. We don't mean to think this way about him. But it is natural for us. It is unavoidable unless we make the specific effort to remember that his ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts (see Isaiah 55:8-9).

When we limit God in this way we tend to get confused about our ultimate priorities. Marriage loses the dignity it possesses as a preparation for the union between God and the Church, the divine bridegroom and his bride. We tend to insist on time-bound and temporary things as if they are absolute and so rely on them for certainty and permanence they cannot offer. Instead, we are called to be like the sons of Maccabees, able to disdain the good things of this world in favor of better things to come.

"It was from Heaven that I received these;
for the sake of his laws I disdain them;
from him I hope to receive them again."

Remembering the eternity of God does indeed give us the fear of the LORD. But it is not a dire or bleak perspective. Rather it is one of ultimate hope. With this perspective we make use of the things of this world for all the good they can provide but with a view toward those things that last forever. 

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father,
who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement
and good hope through his grace,
encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed
and word.

So today, what seems permanent to us that is really temporary? How have such things usurped God's place in our hearts and in our hope? Let us return fully to him who to whom all are alive.

But I in justice shall behold your face;
on waking I shall be content in your presence.