In All Creation
Tuesday, June 27, 2023
God Makes Even Weeds to Reflect God’s Beauty.
Isaiah 49:26
I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine. Then all flesh shall know that I am the Lord your Saviour, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.
Matthew 28:18-20
And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’
Words of Grace For Today
Gruesome. That’s what the Isaiah passage starts out with. Just Gruesome images of revenge on the oppressors.
Gruesome use of power, and that power is God’s power, imagined as revenge and destruction of evil people.
Jesus says that power and all authority to use it is his. He though is not about to do the gruesome revenge thing. Instead he uses the power of self-sacrificial love, unconditional love, especially for the sick oppressors. With that power he not only makes such gruesome punishment unnecessary, he wins the hearts and minds of all people.
And indeed all people will know the power of God, but not as gruesome to be feared, but loving and kind, merciful and gracious, to be feared by evil (especially the evil in us that would be gruesome) and loved by all.
If we want to take power into our hands to force things to be, then God is not for us, but walks with us to entice us down another way of life.
Living as Jesus’ disciples though is as challenging as ever, for we cannot hide in ourselves, among ourselves, safe in our small worlds. Jesus sends us out into the world.
And that is where we make a difference, not gruesomely so, but lovingly and kindly so.