Wednesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 391

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy; and my burden, light."

Our readings today are great reassurance for the scrupulous and the anxious. The Exodus passage complements the gospel well, as we hear of the LORD's descent from the splendor of heaven to see the wretched condition of his people in Egypt. 

We have heard twice before of God's "coming down;" once to see the arrogance of the tower builders in Babel, and again to check out the situation in Sodom and Gomorrah, "to see whether or not their actions are as bad as the cry against them that comes to me. I mean to find out." 

This visitation is quite different; he has come down to deliver the children of Israel from Egypt. Several centuries before, he had sent Jacob's family, into Egypt to deliver them from a famine. But since that time, they had been oppressed by Pharaoh and were rapidly losing their memories of the Lord, and of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They would not know who they are, and would think of themselves only as slaves.  

The Book of Isaiah, many centuries later, would again find the Israelites oppressed; this time in Babylon; and we hear again of God's coming down, 

Too long have we been like those you do not rule,

on whom your name is not invoked.

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,

with the mountains quaking before you,

Capitalizing upon that theme, Saint Paul described Jesus's presence as a coming down, a kenosis of humiliation: 

Who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.

Rather, he emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

coming in human likeness;

and found human in appearance,

he humbled himself,

becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

These references to God's humble coming down and remaining with us should reassure us as we hear the Lord's invitation, 

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.

For the Lord's coming among us is not for judgment, as Bernard Haring wrote: 

The first thing that Christ tells us cannot be a commandment, a stern demand or obligation laid upon man. For if that were the case man, through his wretchedness, would still be in the position of one who is trying to set himself up as the center of his existence. He would be unable to escape from the slavery of his loneliness and his egoism.

Man's life does not come from himself; so the most important thing for him is not what he should do with his life: the first thing is the word by which he lives. When the Word of God in person comes to us and encounters our life, we no longer live in the first instance under a commandment which oppresses and threatens us as though from outside.

The first thing which the incarnate Word of the Father has to tell us is the good news of the love which makes everything new, of the love which calls us to himself. So Jesus does not come to men first with a demand, but with a message of salvation, with the message of the redeeming kingdom of God. It is this that we must hear and take to our hearts; then we will understand the new voice with which the will of God speaks to us. [A Sacramental Spirituality. Bernard Haring C.SS.R Sheed and Ward, New York; 1962; page 5]

Finally, let me recommend that you read loudly, with drama, Psalm 18. It describes the Savior's heaven-shaking, earth-shattering response to one person's plea for deliverance: 

I cried out to my God.
From his temple he heard my voice;
my cry to him reached his ears.
The earth rocked and shook;
the foundations of the mountains trembled;
they shook as his wrath flared up.
Smoke rose from his nostrils,
a devouring fire from his mouth;
it kindled coals into flame.
He parted the heavens and came down,
a dark cloud under his feet.
...He set me free in the open;
he rescued me because he loves me. 

Can there be any doubt?