Ex. 34:4b-6, 8-9; Dan. 3:52-55; 2 Cor. 13: 11-13; Jn. 3:16-18
Mystery of one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is revealed to the disciples and to us through Jesus. It is the love of one God in unity to the divine will that we may all be saved. His name “The Lord” is now given as “Father”. “The Lord” who Moses bowed down and worshiped is now the “Father” who we embrace with the grace of the Son to receive the gift in fellowship with the Holy Spirit. He is “Our Father” in one body and three persons from the beginning of time. From the old to the new the Word remains an act of love for the world but the world must respond to this love to receive its salvation.
This great mystery of one God comes to us in the Son as the true sacrifice of love. Believe in the Son and in his sacrifice to receive eternal life. Belief it not simply done by an expression of word but as the word manifested in our act of love, sacrificial love. The history of Christianity is a history centered on sacrifice. Too often Christianity takes this famous bible passage of John 3:16 to proclaim we are saved by faith alone. This sets us to be free to then follow our own ways. Jesus left us his witness to remain obedient to the Father as he was obedient, to love through sacrifice as he sacrificed himself, and to listen to God through the Holy Spirit we have received.
“The Lord, the Lord a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity…so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life”. In this the promise of the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament in the person of Jesus, second person of the Trinity. Today we need the Lord’s mercy upon our nation and the world as we prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of this nation we pray that we remain “one nation under God”.
The powers that seek to undermine our foundation do so under the false pretense of inclusivity that in order to be open to all we must be a nation that is agnostic, trust in the power of the people rather than in God we trust. It is an ideology destined to fail as it has been proven throughout history as nations rise and nations fall under the power of the people. A nation consecrated to God trusts in a power greater than itself, humbled to worship the God of creation and the Lord who is a “merciful and gracious God”. We must not be silent in our faith but be ready to proclaim it in word and deed. The freedom we live was won by the sacrifice of many who have not only shed their blood but stood with courage to proclaim a nation of faith in God.
Free will dictates we make a choice and the choice we are to make is to embrace God in the Trinity, God with us in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The opposite choice is to remain “a stiff-necked people” where condemnation comes from rejecting faith in his name. In who are we to believe? Many will claim science as ultimate truth but science is limited focusing on the study of the elements of truth, incomplete and evolving. Others look to a political nirvana that exists in theory with no potential of survival in a fallen and broken human nature. Finally, left without a place to turn many are left to believe only in themselves, never at peace without the unity to God or neighbor. The most holy Trinity reflects the need for unity.
Who do we serve, science, politics, oneself, or someone greater than and creator of all that is above, below and most importantly with all? The Lord, Our Father from the beginning is a unity in communion as a Trinity. This the church proclaims as a revelation from God, our Lord and Father in the Son through the Holy Spirit as the source of life itself. Do we believe? Eternity is dependent on the answer. This is the choice this nation finds itself on the streets of good versus evil as we approach our 250th anniversary. With who do we stand?
Who do we serve one God in three Persons or an endless list of ideologies, religions, and broken away denominations? God is a unity of one and until we accept this unity to love God as one united to the one body in the Trinity and our neighbor as one with us in our one Lord and Father, we have a way to journey in the desert of faith.
Recent Comments