 |
| "Feast of Herod," by Lucas Cranach the Elder. |
Luke 9:7-9 for Thursday of
the Twenty-Fifth Week in Ordinary Time.
We also have
heard the same things that left Herod greatly perplexed.
However, we
acknowledge and venerate even more about Christ than Herod knew at the time in
today’s Gospel.
How good it
would be if only we were more like Herod in being greatly
perplexed with amazement and curiosity.
Christ
himself, the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the
source of God’s
creation, wishes we were either cold
or hot, but never merely lukewarm
or room temperature. [See Rev. 3:14-16.]
We need to
wake up and warm up to the fact that only God is necessary, and we are not.
The existence
of all creation is a mystery of God’s freedom, his will, his grace and his
love.
That we are
alive at all should leave us greatly perplexed,
amazed, full of wonder and thankfulness.
There is
more.
In the face
of our forgetfulness, rebellion, sin and ingratitude, God freely chose to
become the SLAVE
who with his own life and death undoes our sin and suffering, and re-creates us
as his partners in glory.
That did not
have to happen; and by all the RIGHTS of God should NOT have happened.
In the face
of the extravagant, exorbitant, outrageous mystery of our redemption, we should
be even more greatly perplexed than Herod.
The mystery
of our redemption and glorification through Christ’s suffering, death and
resurrection is so perplexing, so completely beyond the bounds of our capacity,
that we must ultimately surrender and BORROW, as it were, CHRIST’S own wondrous
thankfulness, Christ’s own wonderful sacrifice in order to thank worthily the
Father for all that he has done in creating and redeeming us.
Here in the
Eucharist, Christ in his personal thankfulness and sacrifice is really present.
Here, God
re-creates us.
Here, God
redeems us.
Here, through
Christ, with him and in him we give God fitting honor, glory and thanksgiving
for all that he has done for us.
Turn. Love.
Repeat.
