A Covenant from God, our Creator, our Savior, our Sanctifier

In today's first reading, Gen. 9: 8-15, God tells Noah that he is establishing his covenant with humankind. The sign of that covenant--never to again destroy the earth and all that is in it by a flood--is the rainbow.  In the New Testament, the sign of God's covenant is Jesus dying on the cross once and for all: "the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead [us] to God," St. Peter  says to us in the second reading of today's liturgy (1 Peter 3: 18-22).  "Put to death in the flesh," Peter goes on to remind us, "he was brought to life in the spirit. In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison, who had once been disobedient while God patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water."In Christ Jesus all are saved.

Jesus took on sin, nailed it to the cross--all sin--so that, through Christ Jesus we may know our holiness in God! When God looks at us He sees the righteous persons we are in Christ Jesus.  He delights in us, as He knows us in Christ Jesus, His Son, who redeemed us in His blood!  Do I know myself--do you know yourself--in that way?  Are we so focused on sin and weakness that we forget who we truly are in Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior?  Or do we see both our holiness in Christ Jesus and our sinfulness apart from God?   Do we seek God above all?  Do we cling to God, the
Rock of our salvation?

God's Grieving and God's Compassion

In today’s first reading, Gen. 6: 5-8; 7: 1-5, 10, God regrets having created humankind. “When the Lord saw how great was… [humankind’s] wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever anything but evil, he regretted that he had made… [humankind] on the earth, and his heart was grieved.”  However, Noah and his household found favor with God and so was spared. 

 

As we contemplate the evil in today’s world, we must wonder whether God does not again regret having created humankind. Yet we also know that amidst the evil around us there is also good. In the Gospel’s parable of the darnel, the disciples wanted to pull the weeds out of the field and Jesus said: “No, [do not do that], because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn” (Mt 13: 24-30).

It is difficult to watch the “darnel” grow along side the “wheat,” yet we know that at the end of time, at the final judgment, God will separate the good from the bad. Those committed to evil and unrepentant will be cast into eternal fires while those committed to good, aware and repentant of the evil they have done, will enter eternal glory.  Rather than ranting and raving about the evil in the world, it is our responsibility to continue doing good and being honest with ourselves  when we fall into Satan’s traps, repenting of the evil we have done and returning to the Lord our God.   As we enter the holy season of Lent, let us do so aware of how evil in this world grieves the heart of God and our own hearts.