Has the Lord
dispelled your darkness?
In Matthew’s Gospel,
the ministry of Jesus begins after the arrest of John the Baptist. Matthew recognizes that Jesus leaves Nazareth and goes to live by
Capernaum by the sea in order to fulfill what the prophet Isaiah had said,
that in the region of Zebulum and
Naphtali, a new light has arisen, dispelling
darkness and gloom. Jesus’ ministry – teaching, preaching, and
healing – will be cause for abundant joy
and great rejoicing – so great, indeed, that his call will be impossible to
resist! The first apostles, Simon and
Andrew, leave their nets and follow Jesus
at his simple request: Come after me and I will make you fishers of
men. They abandon all that is comfortable,
all that they know, to follow him, to follow that light. It is unimaginable,
and yet, it is what we are called to, too.
Like the psalmist in Psalm 27, who realizes that the Lord is his light and his
salvation, we must recognize the Lord’s
presence to us here and now, see God dwelling with us, here and now, finding
refuge in the Lord, our light, a sense
of security that he instills within us.
Confidence in the Lord right now is essential to our ability to abandon
everything and follow him, united in purpose and in goal.
The early Church
struggled with that kind of unity. Paul
exhorts the Corinthians: I urge…that there be no divisions among you,
that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose. We gather for Eucharist to become of one mind
and one heart; our common ground is Jesus Christ himself, as we are baptized in his name, joined as one
body, to one unity. Salvation is to be
found in his love for all people, a love grounded in our recognition of the light and of the power of the love of
God that it embodies in our lives. Let
us join with Jesus, united in the same
mind and the same purpose, prepared to embrace all that Christ represents in
our lives, ready to participate in something greater than ourselves as we
embrace the cross of Christ, knowing
that through it, and only through it, darkness
has been dispelled, that we may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and
follow him always.
This post is based
on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
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