We are a people who are incredibly loved. Loved by one who is love, and who cares for us as our perfect Father – God. I say this, aside from it being an obvious conclusion given the world He created for us, and the many gifts of creation that we all too often take for granted, but also because of the way He demonstrates it through selfless acts of giving to a people who are all too often ungrateful.
In our readings and Gospel this week we hear of two covenants that are pivotal to us in that because of them we can both exist and look forward to eventually existing with our Lord for all eternity. In the time of Noah, God saw how flawed his creations had become. We did not look to Him with wonder, we did not listen to His word. We had deviated and become entrenched in doing things our own way, and worse giving credit for our many gifts to other created images. This was both an insult and an afront to the laws that God had revealed to us. Our collective evil had become so great that He decided that enough was enough and planned to wipe out humanity entirely. Yet He relented when He saw that in Noah and his family there was still a bit of good left in humanity. So, He gave him instructions to build the ark, and save himself, his family and the animals of the earth. Our Lord was merciful even in the face of such great evil in the world. You see, He is always looking for ways to save us. That is His essence. That is also why He gave us such a beautiful sign of this saving, and His promise to never again wipe clean the face of the earth – the rainbow. A beautiful reminder of His mercy and love for us.
That covenant with Noah and humanity was certainly not the only one. When the time came that God wanted us to know Him more intimately, He sent us His Son, Jesus, knowing full well what would take place. He knew that Jesus would establish with us a better understanding of His will, and that He would bring us hope. Yet He also knew that Jesus would be rejected, abused, and killed by us. He knew this and sent Him to us anyway because He loved us that much, and in doing so, brought us a new covenant. One that was sealed with the blood of His Son. One that would last forever and bring us the hope of spending eternity with Him, in the unmarred intimacy that was His original intention from the time of Adam. You see Jesus is the new Adam, and He is the first in the glorification that comes from the new covenant. His glorified body is what we have to look forward to when we reach heaven, for we too will share in His form, just like those that Jesus brought salvation to when He descended into hell after His death. He spent the time bringing His word to those who had been there since the beginning of time, and those who accepted His word were then saved and brought into perfect communion with Him. This is how much our God loves us: even in His death He was working toward saving souls and bringing people closer to Himself. This desire to draw us close to Him never stops; He continues to do so to this day by giving us His body and blood in the form of the Eucharistic feast we participate in every Sunday, and in His loving care in hearing our prayers and having a plan for the salvation of each of us. Our God never tires of His work, He never ever desires anything but our love and closeness, and He is ever our Father with a Father’s loving concern. He never wavers, despite our frequent straying, and He is always there to welcome us home with a loving embrace.
Podcast Link
The Deacons Bench 