Today’s readings: Click on today’s date at http://www.usccb.org/bible/
Working together
Friday, December 13, 2013
Second Week of Advent
Isaiah 48:18, Matthew 11:19
Hearken to my commandments, and your vindication will be like the waves of the sea … Wisdom is vindicated by her works.
When we challenge God’s status as creator, we do so as created co-creators. God said to himself, “Let us make man in our image.” And God said to us, “Be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth and be responsible for it.”
But we wanted more. We wanted to know why as well as how, and ever since we have second-guessed God, wondering why he does what he does. Because of this we fail to flourish.
When Jesus speaks to the people in Matthew 11 he points out their second-guessing, first of John’s severity and then of Jesus’ generosity of spirit. Jesus’ image of God the lover, father, friend and shepherd challenges their negative understanding of God. Could it be that God is more compassionate than legalistic? More communicative than punitive? More patient than patronizing?
But Jesus’ listeners have learned to ask why and demand understanding. This obsession with the “knowledge of good and evil” held them hostage just as it holds us now.
Mystery? Unknowable? Poppycock. Let me “know,” or I refuse to listen. My attention goes to what I can see and hear and taste and touch and feel, and no farther.
But Jesus states a simple fact, “Wisdom is vindicated by her works.” God is neither mocked nor tempted to react when we challenge him. He doesn’t answer our demands. He simply loves us and waits for us to notice his love, one day at a time.
God, YOUR waiting surely shows US how to wait in the time we have. And we have plenty of time. Time neither flies nor crawls; it passes as the swallows sing and the eagles fly, as one gentle breath after another of our unflappable God. You are good.
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1209
