Thursday of Easter Week

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041212.cfm

O LORD, our LORD,

how glorious is your name over all the earth!
What is man that you should be mindful of him,
or the son of man that you should care for him?
R. O LORD, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!

Thoughtful people sometimes criticize the Christian faith for its "anthropocentrism," meaning it regards "the human being as the central fact of the universe." To which we plead guilty. 

But they do have a point. The universe and the Earth existed for eons before the human race evolved; and may, for all we know, exist billions of years afterwards. Life forms of endless description have appeared and disappeared which never encountered human life. 

The ancient psalmist, writing from a small Judaean city or village tucked into a valley between mountains, at the mercy of storms and droughts, plagued by insects, diseases and wild beasts, dependent for daily existence on the vagaries of nature, wondered as we do at the vastness of the universe, and at its apparent indifference to that creature called "man:" 

What is man that you should be mindful of him,
or the son of man that you should care for him?

But the Jewish singer/songwriter knew and celebrated God's favor. The Christian is even more astonished at God's favor because we celebrate the "Word made flesh" who "lived among us." 

At Easter we are even more excited by the Man who tasted death and by his resurrection was revealed as the Son of God. We have heard the critic's complaint and bowed our heads in humility. We not only do not deserve such mercy, we willfully destroyed our only hope of grace, healing, purpose, meaning, vindication and mercy when we crucified the Lord of Glory. And the Lord Creator of the Universe restored those blessings to us despite our best efforts. 

God did this because the Lamb Who Was Slain refused to condemn us. God the Father might well have looked upon that savagely tormented corpse and condemned us. As Jesus' interlocutors said: 

He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’

But, we should notice, Jesus did not draw that conclusion: 

Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures:

“The stone that the builders rejected
   has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
   and it is amazing in our eyes”? (Matt 21:42)

God's mercy and God's favor are indeed "Amazing in our eyes."