Espoused to God….
(01-17-2010)
New Year’s resolutions, a new beginning filled with hope for change and conversion. Do you wonder why we make resolutions, especially when it seems most of us break them all too soon after making them? Perhaps it is the sense of hoping for a better future for ourselves and others in our lives. We need to have that hope for a better future as we see challenging issues at home, work, school and among our friends. All too familiar are the struggles against poverty, disease, bigotry/prejudice, civil unrest, bloody wars, death, and vast injustices still present. As we look at what we have to address in our lives and world, sometimes it is tempting to throw up our hands and say, What's the use? What difference can I make?" Where is hope? Where is God?
Those similar feelings of discouragement and questions must have been in the minds and hearts of the Israelites we hear about in our reading from Isaiah for this Second Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Coming home from exile in Babylonia they dreamed of seeing the former glorious Jerusalem, but now it is in ruins and their cherished Temple, now a pile of stones and rubble, like homes in smashed in the earthquakes in the Philippines, or bombed out Iraq and Afghanistan, and poor Palestine mortared and shelled into devastation. Amid such rubble and crumbled hopes, people have to be wondering where they could ever get the energy to start all over again. And if they did attempt to put their lives back together, would the effort again end in ruin?
And then comes the hope—an experience of surviving yet again, enduring yet again, and the faith of not being alone with the faith of those who help! Isaiah provided that hope as a clearer vision for the returned exiles. The prophet proclaims that restoration for Israel will come from God. There will be lots of work to do, but God will provide the people with care and comfort and bring about hope fulfilled.
The newly re-formed Israel would be called by a new name—a sign of a new relationship with God; entrusted to God's hands for security in such a strong bond it can only be described in beautiful, intimate and sacred imagery of marriage; “God will be wedded to the people.”
Such intimacy may make some hearers a bit uncomfortable—after all to be wedded to God!
“…you shall be called “My Delight, and your land “Espoused.” For the LORD delights in you
and makes your land his spouse.”(Is 62:4)
And there are few passages in the Bible equal this one as a statement of the degree and kind of love that motivates God toward us.
“…as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride so shall your God rejoice in you.”(Is 62:5)
God’s love overflows and never ends, just like we hear in John’s Gospel reading this week on the miracle at the Wedding in Cana.
An interesting approach to the reading I once read simply focused on the emptiness of the jars in the beginning of the story. That is, St. John makes a point to emphasize that the jars were empty and needed to first be filled with water before they could be useful to Jesus—and ultimately turned to rich wine.
We also need to empty ourselves before God; so that His grace can affect a change in us. We may be filled with things that do not allow for the movement and power of God to flow through our lives—our obstinacy, willful negation to change—things that reject grace. We need to be emptied to be opened for God to pour His Spirit into us and change us.
Perhaps we are filled with indifference toward works of mercy, self-righteousness, jealousy, greed, or harshly judgmental of others, infidelity in marriage, bigotry, lust, anger toward your spouse or family/neighbor, or addictive behaviors. All of us have places that deny room for God. We need to be emptied through prayer, Confession-Reconciliation-Penance, counseling, perhaps Anointing of the Sick, and most importantly emptied through our love for God and trust in God. We want to be made into something new and beautiful and we need the power and love of God to help achieve this.
The wedding moment of humanity and God come when we are open to real intimacy "Here at this moment of my life I celebrate God. Help me empty myself that you may fill me with your love that I become that love for others!"
The proclamation of Jesus at the wedding, "I have come that you may have life, and have it more abundantly," is the new wine that will flow through us—life giving wine—Eucharistic Wine—his Real Presence.
In every year, we are called to a deeper conversion and a deeper love by trying to recognize what we need to be emptied of in order to be more filled with the love of Jesus; replenished with new wine to help replenish others who thirst to know that they are abundantly loved by God through us. What do you need to resolve to empty in this New Year in the Lord?
Rejoice at His Wedding, Fr. Gordon
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