“Jesus, you are my Savior. Thank you for all you have already done for me. Help me to place my hand in yours and walk with you into this brand-new day.”
Reflection
God desires that we show Him love. We do this best when we love one another. The first letter of John tells us that we cannot claim to love God whom we do not see if we do not love each other - the images of God - whom we can see. (1 John 4:20) God desires mercy, not sacrifice. He desires that we each love Him passionately, intensely, and completely. And this love is best demonstrated in our own longing for mercy, in our own demonstration of God's complete forgiveness.
The readings for Friday present a familiar tension between the spirit and the letter of the law. In the Gospel (Matthew 12:1-8), the disciples were undoubtedly breaking the letter of the law by picking and eating the grain on the Sabbath. For this, Jesus was scolded by the Pharisees, though Jesus is able to point to the famous Old Testament story of David allowing his soldiers to eat the bread of the offering even though it was reserved for priests (1 Sam 21:2-7). In the first reading, the Pharaoh shows a view of the world similarly obtuse to that of the Pharisees by ignoring the signs performed before him by Moses and Aaron (Exodus 11:10-12:14).
It all boils down to how one views God. If one views God as a sort of “score keeper in the sky” waiting to put down a check mark against us each time we transgress a written rule, then the Pharisees were probably right. The disciples should have just gone hungry. But that’s not my view of God or the view held by Jesus. True enough, the rules are important. But our God is a loving and forgiving God who cares about what’s in our hearts. We all make mistakes, sometimes serious ones. But God forgives if we let Him into our hearts.
Why is it so hard for us to understand that God loves us, all of us? He does not desire our suffering. He wants nothing from us but love. He wants only that we return to Him what He gives us daily - love.
How might the world have been different if we could have heard this message before we sentenced Jesus to die? What would the world have been like if we could have shown mercy rather than demanded sacrifice? How would the world be different today if we showed mercy to those around us rather than demanding justice, sacrifice, our own little piece of the world?
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