We are called to be God’s joyful partners!
The prophet Isaiah calls upon the people of Israel who have returned from exile to be joyful: Rejoice with Jerusalem, he says, and be glad because of her! Isaiah portrays the city of Jerusalem as a nursing mother partnering with God to provide God’s dependent people with nurturing care in abundance: Oh, that you may suck fully of the milk of her comfort, and thus know the prosperity God promises, a prosperity to be measured not in wealth but in the depth of relationship with the Lord. As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you, God adds. Isaiah communicates an invitation to intimacy with God, a God who is generous and nurturing and caring, whose capacity to care for us is infinite. Psalm 66 reminds the people that God has cared for them in the past – he has changed the sea into dry land – and calls upon them to participate in the intimate relationship to which they are invited through exultant prayer: Let all the earth cry out to God with joy! As for the psalmist, he does not hesitate to share his own good news: hear now, all you who fear God, while I declare what he has done for me.
When, in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus appoints seventy-two men to go forth and spread the good news of salvation, those disciples must be as dependent as a child: carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals, Jesus says. Upon completion of their mission, they will return rejoicing, acknowledging all that God was able to accomplish through them because of Jesus’ name. To be a disciple, one who understand’s Christ’s mission, one who lives in intimate relationship with him, one who allows God to work in and through him, is true reason for rejoicing. Paul will know similar joy in his work on behalf of the gospel. May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, he writes to the Galatians. Paul sets aside any dependence on the material world, recognizing that his true dependence must be on Christ alone, Christ, the source of peace and mercy for all, Christ, whom Paul has come to know intimately through his complete and utter embrace of the new creation that is life in Christ. God works through Paul as God works through the disciples and as God works through us. May we joyfully embrace our role as intimate partners of the Lord, bringing the good news of salvation to his kingdom on earth.
This post is based on OLMC’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
No comments:
Post a Comment