Thursday, October 28, 2021
This is the true beauty
of Life lived
for Christ
In response to God’s gifts.
Jeremiah 3:23
Truly the hills are a delusion, the orgies on the mountains. Truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.
Matthew 15:35-36
Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, he took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
Words of Grace For Today
There are always tempting-terrible ways for humans to try to make sense of the world so perverted by our attempts to live without God. In the hills the people gather to fill their senses to overfilling. It is their attempt to try to fill the void in their lives that living separate from God leaves. There is nothing that can be filled by the void of living a lie, telling lies to get ahead, and destroying others with lies.
Where did we go so wrong with the gift of life that God gives us? Wherever it is, it is an oft trod path. So people do stupid things, like gathering for ‘orgies in the mountains’! Mountains are a great place to retreat to celebrate life, but orgies! Sacrificing one’s soul to pleasure in order to fill a void that cannot be filled with anything other than God’s Grace, makes a very bad ending to life! Celebrating God’s Grace on the mountains makes for a blessed life and a blessed end to life, when Jesus gathers us in to a home with many rooms, and room for all. Mountains are for celebrating life. The plains are where life is lived with all its challenges and dangers.
The crowds have followed Jesus to the plain to listen to him, to be healed by him. When it is time to eat, they are afraid, afraid to bring out the little food they have brought with them. The fear is real and reasonable. There are a lot of poor people, hungry people gathered in that crowd.
In the face of this rightful anxiety (for food is required for life to continue) Jesus exercises boundless generosity with a mere seven loaves and a few pieces of fish. Jesus’ little demonstration overcomes the crowd’s collective fears (now that is a miracle!) and as the seven loaves and fish pass from one person to the next each person brings out their little supper to eat and to pass the extras along for the others to take from or contribute to … and everyone eats their fill.
This is the meal that fills the void in our souls. The food fills the crowd’s stomachs, and their sharing transforms the meal into a great blessed celebration. This is the feast of eternity that God provides for us whenever we are souls are hungry. This is the feast that results when we share the great blessings God has given us with each other.
What will we, what will you choose this day and each day you breath: ‘Orgies in the hills’ [our own ways of trying to fill our hungry souls], OR feasting with Jesus [humbly accepting the Grace and life that Jesus offers us]: there are many choices we make each day and they lead us to a greater void in our lives, or to thanking God for all the blessings of life
…
by sharing it with those who have less than we have.
What a wondrous life God gives us each day.