+ As we begin the first full week of our Lenten journey we need a measure to measure with! The measure par-excellence that God himself prescribes is his law: for it is a law of unconditional and very particular
meaning, no strings attached, and applies to everyone.
From the time he formed Israel
as a people he laid down the common sense laws of interpersonal engagement both
for them with him and them with each other. This same dynamic applies to us!
But it begins with the most astounding mandate imaginable: follow these rules,
these laws and these prescriptions because I command that you BECOME HOLY AS I
AM HOLY!
WOW! We must understand what
is going on here! God is not setting an impossible barre for us to rise up to,
because when God commands, he always empowers with enough spiritual (as well as
physical) energy to accomplish what he is demanding. And so, WOW, we mere human
beings can become HOLY AS GOD IS HOLY! This is astounding news! And
all the prescriptions we must engage in to bring this about are summarized by
the commandments and later by Jesus in the words: love one another, even your enemies: you shall love your neighbor as
yourself.
In
the gospel passage we have the other end of the spectrum: after
millennia of encouraging the inhabitants of the face of his Father’s earth to
love fully, gladly, from the heart and with no strings attached, Jesus will
come to take accounting of the project! Those who have indeed loved concretely,
with self-sacrificial acts of kindness, compassion and mercy will be welcomed into the kingdom, for whenever
any act of kindness in the spiritual realm is done, because Jesus identifies
his very self so intimately with the poor and the needy, we actually do it or
don’t do it to Jesus himself.
May
we today find favor before the Lord, both
now and on the Day of Judgment, because the joy of our heart is the compassion
and mercy we show for others!
Behold,
now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation!
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