God's justice like the mountain of God

Today’s first reading, Jeremiah  2: 1-3, 7-8, 12-13, is proclaimed to all of us in today’s world, as we, too, have “defiled [the Promised Land], “made [God’s] heritage loathsome,” “rebelled against [God], gone "after useless idols.” 

The psalmist speak of God’s awesome, all prevailing mercy, which “reaches to the heavens.” God’s “faithfulness,” the psalmist reminds us, “to the clouds.”   God’s “justice is like the mountains of God; [God’s] judgments, like the mighty deep”  (Psalm 36).  If you and I, or any sinner, comes before God,  God takes out his gavel and proclaims: “Not guilty!”  “What?” we ask in amazement. God replies:  “Your debt has been forgiven.  Your sin is no more. It is erased, blotted out, forgiven.   

Volumes of testimony against the human race could be compiled to prove our guilt.  Those volumes would reach into the farthest depths of the earth and reach up into the farthest heights of the heavens.  God’s mercy, on the other hand, would be deeper and higher than any of our transgressions.   “…The  One sitting on the throne…[says to us], ‘Look, I am making the whole of creation new. Then He …[says]..., ‘It has already happened. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give water from the well of life free to anybody who is thirsty; anyone who proves victorious will inherit these things; and I will be his/[her] God and he[she] will be my son/[daughter].  But the legacy for cowards, for those who break their word, or worship obscenities, for murderers and the sexually immoral, and for sorcerers, worshippers of false gods or any other sort of liars, is the second death in the burning lake of sulphur.” (Revelation 21:  5-8).

Obviously, the choice is ours.  God is not the one who proclaims  us “Guilty” nor the one who condemns us.  We do that to ourselves by the choices we make.  What choices are you and I going to make today?