Tag Archives: Love of Christ

Learning to worship God alone

04 Saturday Mar 2017

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tempationsIn Adam and Eve, the devil trips humanity up not just through the temptation to exalt ourselves by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (the sin of pride) but also through the temptation to reduce God to our limits.  The serpent plants the seed for this second sin in his reply to Eve, You certainly will not die!  No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is evil.

The devil introduces a doubt about God and God’s goodness.  There is some reason God does not want them to eat of this tree…  There is something God is holding back…  There is something that even God is fearful of…

If God is fearful then God is not God because there is then something beyond God which causes fear within God.  Scriptures tells us that God is love (1 Jn. 4:16) and also that perfect love casts out all fear (1 Jn. 4:18).  In God there is no fear, only love.  God is not bound by our limits.

During his trial in the desert, our Lord overcomes the temptations of the devil and the doubts the serpent seeks to plant by holding to the truth of a God beyond our limits.  When the devil took our Lord to the parapet of the temple and seeks to plant doubt by saying, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down and then even quotes scripture; our Lord quotes scripture back, You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test. 

We do not put God to the test in the way that we can test one another by trying each other’s patience and resolve.  God cannot be tested this way.  We put God to the test when we seek to bind God by our limits.  When, in this sense, we put God to the test we, in fact, show our limits, we do nothing to God.  God remains God whether we fully understand Him or not.  Christ will not put God to the test.  He will not limit God but will live rather in full trust of the love of the Father and full obedience to the Father’s will.

In my experience as a confessor as well as through my own stumblings in life, I have learned that one of the most corrosive aspects of sin in our lives is the seed of doubt in the goodness and true nature of God that can be planted by the evil one in our hearts.  God is like us.  God is fearful.  God needs to control.  God is jealous as we are often jealous.  God is a God of wrath.  God is somehow opposed to my freedom and fulfillment.  God is angry with me.  God is somehow “put off” by my weakness and failures.  Ultimately, God is not truly love…

The season of Lent and its disciplines offers us a time of both repentance and renewal.  As we begin this season I think it would be most beneficial to begin where our Lord begins – by not limiting God to our limits, by not putting God to the test.  To trust that God is love and that perfect love has no fear.

At the last temptation our Lord is taken to a high mountain and promised all the kingdoms of the world if he would but serve the devil.  Our Lord responds, Get away Satan!  It is written: “The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.”  Only God shall we worship and serve.  Lent is an invitation to follow our Lord and let go of any god we might be carrying around in our wounded hearts made in our limits in favor of the true God we are called to worship.

God is love and in love there is no fear.

Belonging to Christ

16 Saturday Apr 2016

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Christ the Good ShepherdThe context of today’s gospel (Jn. 10:27-30) is the feast of the Dedication in Jerusalem. Jesus is in the Temple when he is approached by some Jews who begin to question him, asking if he is the Christ.  The feast of the Dedication marked an historical moment in the history of Israel when the Jewish people were able to overcome their Greek oppressors and re-dedicate the Temple by destroying and removing a pagan altar that had been placed there.  The context is important because it demonstrates the importance of the Temple in the culture and psyche of the Jewish people.  The Temple was the meeting place between God and his people.  The Temple was the visible sign for the Jewish people of their belonging to God.  This sense of “belonging” is of importance.

In his reply to their questions our Lord says, “My sheep…” Another translation gets more specific and has our Lord say, “The sheep that belong to me…” Elsewhere in the gospels our Lord says that he is the good shepherd and he then shares the attributes of the good shepherd but here the focus seems to be more on the sheep and true belonging. True belonging is not ultimately to be found in any sort of physical structure but in relationship with Christ, who is God incarnate in our midst.  This is the new covenant that our Lord inaugurates and it is the covenant in which we belong and have fullness of life.

What does it mean “to belong”?

“My sheep hear my voice…”  To “hear” the voice of Christ is to let it enter into one’s life and one’s heart.  It also means being willing to listen.  In the equation of Christian life there is a part that is our due.  We have to take the time and make it a priority to listen to God through prayer, through reading the Scriptures, through receiving the sacraments, through being active in community.  We have to be willing to turn off all the distractions that this life affords in abundance and listen for the voice of the shepherd.  We also need to not let the voices of fear drown out the voice of the shepherd.  We need to guard our hearts for the one voice that brings true life.

“I know them, and they follow me.”  In the third chapter of John’s gospel, our Lord tells us that everyone who does wrong hates the light that has come into the world and avoids it.  This is the human condition weakened by original sin.  We all have this fear in us.  We all want to hide away parts of ourselves – our sins, our weaknesses, our little egos.  The Christian life is a journey of letting go of this fear.  We need to allow Christ in.  We need to allow him to know us and we need to trust in his love and his mercy.  It is like going to a doctor.  A doctor cannot prescribe the proper cure if we keep our mouths shut and do not say what ails us.  Christ is the divine physician but he wants to hear from us what ails us.  Knowledge and love are connected.  The more that we are known by Christ, the more we know we are loved by Christ and then we follow – not out of fear or obligation – but out of love.

“I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.”  This answers the deepest yearning of the human heart – to belong eternally.  This is the hope that we have as Christians – already planted deep within our hearts.  C.S. Lewis describes it as the memory of the distant land we have yet to visit.  It is a hope that continually pulls us forward – beyond our limits, our fears and our sins.

The truest friendship we have is friendship with Christ. His words spoken to us are words spoken in friendship and they are words that invite us into the greatest mystery – in Christ we come to know the Father and we come to know that we belong to him.

“No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand.  The Father and I are one.” 

The “Gathering In” of Holy Week

21 Monday Mar 2016

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Christ Washing Peter's Feet, Ford Madox BrownSo much of the Christian life seems to be about “going out”. We are called to go out to proclaim the good news.  We go out to share Christ’s love.  We go out to serve others.  This is good and authentic to our faith and it is the mandate that Christ has given us as Church to proclaim the good news to the ends of the earth.

That being said, it is interesting to note that Holy Week – the most sacred days of our year as Christians – is a time of “gathering in”. This is appropriate and right, I believe, because Jesus, himself, wants this time with his disciples.  More than just a remembering on our part; Jesus desires to spend these days with us.

In chapter thirteen of John’s Gospel we read the evangelist’s account of the Last Supper. John begins by setting the context as being the time of the celebration of Passover.  More so than the great Jewish feast; this is to be the time when our Lord will “pass over” death in order to return to the Father in triumph.  Certainly our Lord is preparing himself for the hour which has arrived but, important to note, he is also much concerned to prepare his disciples.  He knows that they will be tested over the next few days, he knows that one will betray him, that one will deny him and that they will flee and be afraid.  He also knows that eventually they will be sent out into the whole earth to proclaim the good news.  Jesus knows the weakness, limits and confusion of his disciples yet he loves them. Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, having loved those who were his in the world, loved them to the end. (Jn. 13:1)

Scholars suggest that the Greek term “to the end” has two connotations. It can mean, “to the end of his life” and it can also mean, “to the very limit, the very maximum, of love”.  Christ loves his disciples, his “little ones” to the fullest extent and he greatly desires to spend this time with them.

There is a great tenderness of love that is being expressed in the account of the Last Supper. Jesus takes the role of the servant when he washes his disciples’ feet.  Peter knows that this is a fundamental break with the prevailing custom of the time.  It was the role of the servant, the slave to wash the feet of the guests not the role of the head of the household.  Yet, Jesus is the head of the household who is willing to serve and he tells his disciples that they must do the same.  They do not fully understand now but they will later.  More than just a nice symbol, token or remembrance, this call to serve and die to self is the royal road on which the disciple directly encounters our Lord.

I give you a new commandment: love one another; you must love one another just as I have loved you. It is by your love for one another, that everyone will recognize you as my disciples.  (Jn. 13:34-35) The love that we must have as Christians must be based in that very love that Christ has for us and it is in this love particularly that his little ones will be recognized as his disciples.

At this point Peter asks a question from which we all benefit; Simon Peter said, “Lord, where are your going?” Jesus replied, “Now you cannot follow me where I am going, but later you shall follow me.” Peter said to him, “Why can I not follow you now?  I will lay down my life for you.”  “Lay down your life for me?” answered Jesus.  “In all truth I tell you, before the cock crows you will have disowned me three times.” (Jn. 13:36-38)

“Now you cannot follow me where I am going, but later you shall follow me.” Yes, later Peter will follow our Lord to the sacrifice of his own life and beyond that to the glory of eternity with God but there is another, even more fundamental, following implied here. Peter must first learn the way of love that our Lord has initiated at the Last Supper.  Peter (the little one who balked at having his feet washed) is not yet ready to learn this true extent of love that the disciple of Christ is to be recognized by but he will be ready later.  And it is by the royal road of this love that Peter will later be able to then let go of his very self, even to the point of death.

We are all so much like Peter. We all think we have so much figured out yet, in truth, we all have so much to learn but Christ loves us to the end.

These days are more than just a remembrance. These days are more than something we do to acknowledge our faith.  Christ, our Lord, desires to spend these days with us.

Christ gathers us in and Christ loves us to the end.