Fascinating And Tremendous Is The Lord Our God

Friday of the Thirtieth Week Integral

Our Scriptures today are anchored in the Introit antiphon from psalm 105: “Let hearts that seek the Lord rejoice; turn to the Lord and His strength. Constantly seek His face.” We see our life’s destiny in that simple admonition: seek the face of the Lord. That command has two facets, though, which theologians call the fascinans and tremendum. Fascinans, because the transcendent God, so unlike our daily life, is alluring and enchanting, beckoning us toward union. But there is another aspect. God is awe-inspiring and similarly fearfully other than we, and if we understand our weakness and sinfulness, along with His purity and perfection, we shrink from His presence in terror. In the OT, the Hebrews feared that if they saw God, they would die instantly.

St. Paul experienced both in his life for Christ. On the Damascus road, all his Pharisaic upbringing was challenged to the depths by the vision of Christ glorified, God in the flesh, and His words, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me.” He was blinded by the understanding that jailing and killing the followers of Jesus was akin to jailing and killing the Lord Himself. And yet on one occasion, he was transported in spirit into the presence of the Trinity, seeing and hearing things that defied human words and pictures, awesome beyond speech.

So consider Paul’s words to the church at Rome. He had seen the Lord, experienced Him as a living God-man, risen from the dead. He knew that he and all who believe in Him and are sacramentally united to Christ are destined for eternal joy in His presence. But Paul had a sorrow, an anguish in his heart. Most of his people, the first-century Jews, refused to believe in a Messiah who had died a slave’s death on a Roman cross. Paul was so aggrieved by that reality that he would surrender his own ultimate glorification in Christ if it could bring his nation into the Church, fulfilling in Christ the promises made to the patriarchs and foreshadowed in the covenants, law, worship and promises celebrated in synagogues. Those of us whose ancestors over multiple generations brought us their families into belief and right worship, and whose European cultures have turned away from the Church, only have a tiny twinge of sorrow over that, compared to the grief of St. Paul. May they all come to faith soon, and have eternal and deep reasons for Jerusalem to praise the Lord.

In Luke’s Gospel today, Jesus traps the scribes and Pharisees in their narrow understanding of the Mosaic Law. It’s the Sabbath day, when no work is to be done. A man comes to Him with terrible swelling in his extremities. Jesus asks the experts, “Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath or not?” No answer, so Jesus heals the man and sends him home. Then the words that cauterize, or should seal up, the wound He opened in their understanding: “Which of you would hesitate to pull your son, or even your ox out of a cistern on the Sabbath?” No answer again, because Jesus once again proved the two principles that come along with the wondrous love of God exhibited in Jesus, and, by extension, the Church.

First, the Messiah is the true master of Sabbath observance. Second, the Law, which is foremost the Law of love of God and neighbor, is made for us humans. We are not made for anything less than union with God Himself. Blessed be His Holy Name.