12 August 2016
Friday of the 19th Week in Ordinary Time
“Know your roots.” A common piece of advice, encouraging people not to get swept up by every fad and change by remembering where they came from. Both Jesus and Ezekiel take us back to the beginning today. Ezekiel takes us back to the start of the covenant God made with Israel, and how helpless we were then. Jesus, in His debate with the Pharisees, takes us back even further than that–to the beginning of humanity itself. Ezekiel shows us the tender love that God has for us even in our sinful state. Jesus shows us what we were like before that sinful state–the greatness we were made for in the beginning.
In our “hardness of hearts,” we can sometimes want to make compromises. We might think that we haven’t ever been good enough to live the lives that God is calling us to, or that we aren’t good enough now. But Jesus tells us today that we are far better than we have ever imagined, and were made for far greater things, and Ezekiel assures us that as low as we’ve fallen, it is never too low to merit God’s tender care. As we travel through this world, it is helpful to remember what we were made for so that we don’t lose our way. And to do that, it is helpful to think back to when we were made.