Weekend Reflections for 8/26/16

"Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24.

'You have approached Mount Zion and the city of the Living God ...'

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews, whoever he or she was, describes the ever-deepening revelation of the Divine to those who have become the naturalized citizens of the Nation of God through the sacrifice of Jesus. The revelation on Sinai and the giving of the Law was a terrifying experience. There were established the boundaries beyond which we cannot go - no others gods, no idols, no lying, etc. The splendor of God ripped through the fabric of this world with such authority that the people begged not to hear again the shattering voice of God. In contrast, the experience of the new Sinai established in the blood of Jesus is not terrifying but seductive. It is a shining city rather than a mountain blanketed in thunderstorms, a festival gathering of angels, those enrolled in heaven, and the spirits of the just made perfect in the blood of Jesus. That is, the citizens of city of the Living God are us. It is our nationality, our ethnicity, the object of our allegiance. We are colonists of the Kingdom of God and struggle to live by its constitution, its laws, its culture and values and ways of life where the humble are exalted, and the blind warmly welcomed, the lame embraced, the people who have been shoved to the margins are triumphantly brought to the center of the city of God."

Francis X. Ryan, SJ