Wednesday, August 9, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Here in the desert shall your dead bodies fall
We have moved on from the disaster that overtook the Israelites in the Desert of Sin. Their community was destroyed by their disobedience and bitterness; everyone over twenty would die before the Israelites entered the Promised Land.
Forty days you spent scouting the land; forty years shall you suffer for your crimes. One year for each day.
But we have not moved on very far. Jesus the Redeemer has come to redeem us, and this miracle of transformation will never end, and never be complete, and never be very well accepted or understood. Many of us are Christians because someone told us we should be, or we belong to a church that tells us what to believe, or because we were born into a Christian family and community. Many others of us see God as a taskmaster and punisher, and we are afraid of Him, so we are “Christians.”
When we move on, we move past our fears into love. John said, “There is no fear in love.” When I am afraid, I can breathe deeply and remember how close the Holy Spirit is, whispering in my ear, “I love you.”
A lady from Canaan said to Jesus, “Please, Lord, even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” And Jesus said back to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let your daughter’s demon be gone, as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
Henri Nouwen wrote often of Jesus dwelling inside our hearts. The woman from Canaan knew this truth from the inside out.
Listen to your heart. It’s there that Jesus speaks most intimately to you. Praying is first and foremost listening to Jesus who dwells in the very depths of your heart. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t thrust himself upon you. His voice is an unassuming voice, very nearly a whisper, the voice of a gentle love. Whatever you do with your life, go on listening to the voice of Jesus in your heart. This listening must be an active and very attentive listening, for in our restless and noisy world God’s so loving voice is easily drowned out.
At times when I was lying in my hospital bed last week I felt fear, and then remembered to pray. “Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” This “Jesus prayer” is a short prayer and can be repeated over and over. When the author of the Russian spiritual classic The Pilgrim asked his priest about this, the priest told him, “Repeat this prayer three thousand times, and come back tomorrow.” When the pilgrim did this, the priest told him, “Now go, and let this prayer accompany your heartbeat. Go to sleep with it on your lips, and awaken in the morning with it on your lips.”
Jesus, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
This will move us along, out of the Desert of Sin, across the Jordan River, into the Promised Land.
(Numbers 13, Psalm 106, Luke 7, Matthew 15)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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