Do not thwart your relationship with God and what God has in mind for you.
Isaiah 54:1-10
Luke 7:24-30
How is your relationship with God going?
Throughout the sacred scriptures, we see God’s relationship with Man in the history of salvation. In Genesis, chapter 1, God created them male and female. (Mark 10:6). They are to be fruitful and multiply and Revelation 19: says blessed are those who are invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb. The image of matrimony is used in scriptures often to express our relationship with God. The sacrament of matrimony fully expresses that. God is the bridegroom and his people are the bride. When people sin, they thwart that relationship as if they’re having an extramarital affair
Today we read the profoundly beautiful words from Isaiah, chapter 54 when he declares: For now your creator will be your husband, his name, the Lord of Hosts; your redeemer will be the Holy One of Israel, he is called the God of the whole earth. Yes, like a deserted wife the Lord calls us back. God forgives the iniquities of his bride.
He added;
My love shall never leave you
nor my covenant of peace be shaken says the Lord, who has mercy on you. You can just feel the deep longing in the soul of Isaiah when he shouts these words. There is hope for the barren, the advent of the Lord removes our shame and covers us with salvation.
Like a best man for the Bridegroom, John the Baptist appears on the scene not with fine clothes or beautiful attire like those in the palaces but he was clothed with camel’s skin and a leather belt. His food is locust and wild honey and He came to prepare the way for the Bridegroom through the repentance of sins so that his bride may live forever. The bridegroom is the Lamb who takes away the sins of the word and he has come to set us free from sin and bring us to his banquet in heaven.
Like the bridegroom that arrives at the feast of the Lamb at an unexpected time, the Lord will come at an hour we do not expect. An hour we do not know.
Let us prepare and be ready for the Lord. Come, Lord Jesus. Fill every corner of our world with your self-emptying love. Amen.
Fr Joseph Osho
