To this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over the hearts of the children of Israel, but whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is removed.
Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is freedom.
All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit.
In today’s first reading, Saint Paul reflects upon his own mystical experience as he tells us about freedom. This is, to use his expression from another context, “a very great mystery.”
Saint Paul had grown up with an oppressed spirit as he lived by the Law of Moses. But, because it was imposed upon him from the day of his circumcision, he did not feel the oppression. It seemed to him and to everyone he knew as normal as the weight of gravity and the air we breathe. There was no questioning it.
This weight of compliance to the Law was complicated by the Roman occupation. That too felt like an eternal verity, or like "God's will." The Empire was as solid as “death and taxes,” and could not be questioned.
However, on the road to Damascus, a Commanding Presence who seemed fascinating, beautiful, and desirable overwhelmed the Pharisee with his stunning complaint, “Why do you persecute me?” That question coming with obviously divine authority staggered Paul. But if the words sounded angry, the Presence was inviting. He had to follow and obey this One whose Authority dwarfed the Jewish establishment and the Roman Empire. He could do nothing else.
And in service to that “Jesus whom you are persecuting” he found his freedom. The veil was lifted. He knew the Lord as Spirit “and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
Paul had never met the man Jesus before his crucifixion. If he heard rumors of the uproar in Jerusalem that began with the Lord’s triumphal entry and ended in crucifixion, he maintained the same suspicious, hostile attitude of his Pharisee party. When the apostles began to evangelize throughout Judea and as far as Damascus, young Paul felt growing irritation and exasperation at this absurd movement.
But after that event on the road, Paul knew the Lord in his body, his mind, and his heart. This encounter was not an idea or theory about God. The Resurrected Jesus felt the pain of persecution, imprisonment, and death; and Paul saw the Lord's grief with his blind eyes. Nor could he deny Jesus’s identity as LORD. If he was not YHWH, he was the Son of God and spoke with equal authority.
Every time Paul turned to the Lord in prayer it was as if he were Moses entering the sanctuary; he felt the veil which smothered his breath and dimmed his eyes being lifted from his face. He knew freedom from the Pharisaic law; that burden which had constricted his breathing since before he could remember was gone.
Forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment
I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.