Wednesday Lent Five

“Hear my voice, O LORD, according to your loving-kindness;*

according to your judgments, give me life…

Deliverance is far from the wicked,*for they do not study your statutes…

Great is your compassion, O LORD;*preserve my life, according to your judgments…

The heart of your word is truth;*all your righteous judgments endure for evermore.”

Psalm 119, Wednesday Lent Five, Morning Prayer, the Daily Office, Year One

The fullness of our lives runs the course with which we embrace the fullness of loving, to which God has judged us as “worthy” of since before creation. We deceive ourselves if we believe otherwise, we fall to the snares of The Accuser if we ever accept the deception that we are never worthy of God’s love, of any love. All humanity, past, present and future is subject to God’s compassion as realized in the love of Jesus Christ by his great offering of love, sanctified by his utter selflessness before all creation, by which he proves us all worthy to be loved and to love. Jesus has realized God’s statutes by loving God completely, in his loving us completely, by his willingness to die an innocent man on the cross, to satisfy our blood-lust once and for all. Jesus reminds us that God's will is for us to love one another, to subject ourselves into loving each other. Therefore if anyone says you are not worthy of God’s love, turn away from them, for the truth that is at the heart of God’s word is love, and this love is “righteousness” which endures forevermore. God's capacity to love is a mystery to the mind which seeks to be in control.  Yet God's mystery is manifest as God's love extends into everyone and everything of his creation and revealed in the surrendering mystery of Jesus's great compassion, which pushes our willing hearts into the widening mystery of our growing love. To deny God’s love for all his works of creation, of you and me, is to deny God his truth, and worse for me, should anyone deny another person the knowledge of God’s unmitigated love for them, is to play God. God’s love is always available for the ones who confess their transgressions, in spirit and truth, and then accept God’s love by reciprocating the love in living the life,  the way of Jesus, the way of loving, mercy, transformation and compassion.