God Rules with His Strong Arm

In today's first reading, Isaiah  40: 1-11, Isaiah asks us to "comfort, give comfort to my people. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated.  Indeed, she has received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins....A voice...[cries] out [that] [a]ll flesh is grass, and all their glory like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower wilts, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it. So then, the people is the grass. Though the grass withers and the flower wilts, the word of the God stands forever....Here comes with power the Lord God, who rules with his strong arm; here is his reward with him, his recompense before him. Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms her gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom, and leading the ewes with care."

We belong to God. Because we are God's creation, God's cherished children, God did not hold anything back in His love for us.  His recompense is our salvation secured for us by the death of
God's only begotten Son, by God in human form put to death as a criminal!  As on Calvary, so, now, God "rules with his strong arm." God gathers us in his arms, carries us in his bosom, leads us with care now and always until that moment with "the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken....A voice....[that] says...."Here is our God! Here comes with power the Lord God, who rules by his strong arm."

My faith tells me that God is always in work in our world: in the earthquakes, the fires, the disasters, the mud slides, the floods, the rescues, the surfacing of truth, the generosity of persons reaching out to help those in need, the divisions caused by greed, dishonesty, injustice.  What looks like disaster, as on that very first Good Friday, will at some point give rise to new life!  Why? because God "rules with his strong arm."

A Light Shining in the Darkness

In today’s Gospel, Mt. 4: 12-17, 23-25, Jesus leaves Nazareth and goes to live in Capernaum by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali, the “Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sit in darkness,…those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death…”  That is us here in the U.S., in Syria, Palestine, Israel, Egypt, Africa, China, Russia, Europe; in fact, the entire world.   Over us, within us, among us a “light has arisen.”  That Light is the Son of God come into the world as an infant, present among us through each one of us who believes in the Incarnate God, God incarnate in each one of us who believes in and are instruments of God’s love and mercy given to us personally in the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, Eucharist and Reconciliation, as well as in all of the other sacraments.  The Light of God shines forth in the world through our acts of kindness and forgiveness, our standing up for the Truth, our acting justly and loving tenderly—the tender love parents shown to their children, the love expressed to adolescents having a difficult time growing up, the love expressed to those who are mentally, physically, emotionally challenged, to those who are different from us in race, creed,  and sexual orientation; to the homeless, the alcoholic, the men and women sitting in our prisons, those desperately needy in some way.

Jesus enters our darkness with the message “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” People will know that truth when we reach out to heal all diseases and bridge the gap that separates us from that  and  from those with whom we are ill at ease.   May we welcome Jesus into our thinking and believing so that we do not hold back from the invitation to make the difference that will bring healing to those we meet today.