Today’s readings: Click on today’s date at http://www.usccb.org/bible/
Trembling gods
Friday, April 11, 2014
Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent
John 10:34-36
Jesus answered the Jews, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, ‘You are gods’? If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came, and Scripture cannot be set aside, can you call my words blasphemy?”
I have to admit that when I read this, my new-age heart skips a beat. I think I might just stretch out my chest and burst the mortal coil. I get to be a god!
Then I read the passage Jesus is quoting: Psalm 82. It is a cry against self-righteous hypocrisy. Those whom God gave great authority have crushed others instead of lifting them up, ignored trouble rather than bringing salvation, and left their actions to speak for themselves. They ridicule those in their care, preen their own feathers, and ignore the reputation of God, whom they supposedly serve.
So … it’s not easy being a god. Nothing slapdash about it. We are made to be far more wonderful than we turn out to be, not least in the lives of those we fail to love.
Jesus breaks that old mold; he recognizes that “the Father has consecrated him and sent him into the world.” Jesus the man-god carves out a path through the mountains for the rest of us, makes the road straight, and calls us to follow him. “Believe the works,” he says.
And indeed, Jesus wants us to be gods, every one. We are given great authority and great power. But this is so much NOT a new-age assumption to step into lightly.
Martin Laird discovers this in an old book written in England hundreds of years ago, The Book of Privy Counselling: “God is your being and you are what you are in him. Perfect humility comes through the superabundant love and excellence of God in himself, at the sight of which all nature trembles, all scholars are fools, and all saints and angels are blind.”
In this trembling, “the soul will suddenly and completely lose all knowledge and feeling of its existence, paying no attention to whether it has been holy or wretched. During this time it is made perfectly humble.” Laird summarizes, “In order for humility to mature it must blossom into self-forgetfulness.”
This self-forgetfulness, which naturally aims my actions toward service of others, is what Jesus wants for his listeners. For us. The reading for today ends, “And many there began to believe in him.”
Jesus, when I see the path of life through your eyes, it is bright with color and promise. Joy comes in the morning, afternoon and evening, in the midst of suffering, in the shape of blessing, surrounding me in the silence that accompanies every sunrise. Oh, oh, you are good!
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1272
