Wednesday of the Third Week of Easter

 Lectionary: 275

Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.

Recently I came across this passage in Ezekiel 26 which struck me as darkly comical.

But when they came to the nations, where they went, they desecrated my holy name, for people said of them: “These are the people of the LORD, yet they had to leave their land.” So I relented because of my holy name which the house of Israel desecrated among the nations to which they came.

Apparently, the Lord will save us because everyone knows we belong to the Lord and, as things now stand, we're an embarrassment to him. That will change when the Lord acts! 

Some people hope they're good enough to be saved. Others suppose they've earned their salvation by their good deeds, or because they've committed no heinous crimes. Some take an opposite tack, and strive mightily to pass through the narrow gate with a scrupulous watch over their every thought, word, and deed. They anxiously, monotonously worry about imaginary sins as if a Jansenist God regretted their very existence and is eager to cast them into hell forever and ever. 

Passages like the above in John 6 and Ezekiel 36, as well as Ez 20:32, remind us that God has his own purposes which have little to do with our merit or lack of merit. In today's gospel Jesus explains that he acts in obedience to God his Father,

"...because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me."

He wants to save us because his Father wills it. That is such a relief! I thought it all depended upon me; I worried that I was not good enough. I feared that my foolish, immature, thoughtless actions were weighing against me. I believed that God regretted ever creating me in the first place. But it's not about me! My life is not about me! It's a story -- a good story -- about the wonderful works of God. 

Give thanks to the LORD, invoke his name;
make known among the peoples his deeds!
Sing praise to him, play music;
proclaim all his wondrous deeds!
Recall the wondrous deeds he has done,
his wonders and words of judgment,
You descendants of Abraham his servant,
offspring of Jacob the chosen one!

But someone might ask, "Why? Why should God want to save me?" 

"For the sake of Abraham." As we read in Genesis 22, God made a covenant with Abraham, his friend, and would keep the covenant for the sake of Abraham forever. 

And so he explained to Isaac: 

I am the God of Abraham, your father. Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of Abraham, my servant. 

The Lord also bestowed upon Moses that intimacy, and renewed the covenant of friendship with him as we read in Exodus. 

Finally, the Christian knows we are saved for the sake of Jesus, and the sacrifice of his own body and blood. The promises made to Abraham and Moses have been fulfilled, not abrogated, in the Son of David. We have been caught up in the fiery mystery of the Father's love for the Son, and the Son's love for the Father, a fire we call the Holy Spirit. It is tornadic, like the one Moses saw in a burning bush. These fires can't be bothered whether they're consuming oil refineries, old growth forests, or rural settlements. Their intensity explains everything. 

We saw this love on Good Friday and were astonished by it. It seemed too much! Too intense. Unbearable. Realizing what might happen we had begged the Lord not to go to Jerusalem. But his obedient love compelled him at every step. For this he was born! 

"For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

We belong to the Lord. We belong to Truth. We abide no falsehood. And so he saves us.