HEARTS AND TEARS.1

Longing Heart (tears of passion) March 22 Lent 4

Ex 20:1-17; Ps 19; 1 Cor 1:18-25; Jn 2: 13-22 

Exodus 20:1-17: The account of the giving of the ten commandments which is in fact a display of God’s heart for  healthy relationships; between God and creature, between one person and another, between a person and the world around him.

In the first three commands God reminds them that He stands alone as the one who rescued them and cared for them, and that He has chosen them to be His unique and special people. His longing, expressed in this communication is that they would learn to trust and rely upon him and His compassion for them.

He then gives them a prescription for healthy living for the community of both people and animals. Don’t try to work every day of your existence – take time to rest and reflect on this God who has selected and surrounded you with His goodness. This ensures a godly focus as well as justice for all people in their community whether slave or free.

The final five commands are about relationships within the community of God’s people. These commands create an environment in which every person and relationship is treated with respect as one who is equally loved and treasured by their Creator. They also strengthen the need to rely on God and His provision as sufficient for each.

 

1 Corinthians 1:18-25: Paul reflects on the apparent foolishness of God’s willingness to restore us to relationship at an immeasurable cost to Himself – and that this apparent foolishness is in fact great wisdom, so great that it is beyond the wise.

What amazes me is that the One who creates and sustains the Universe by His decision alone chooses a way of bringing us into relationship that to the sophisticated makes him look ridiculous – such is the depth of His longing for us. Of course, as Paul rightly discerns, in the process being willing to look ridiculous, God has made a mockery of all that humanity offers as wisdom, subtlety, and discretion.

God here is demonstrating the lengths to which He is prepared to go in order to draw and hold us in a relationship of healing and transforming intimacy – the Creator with His creature.

 

John 2:13-22: The cleansing of the Temple reveals the radical nature of God’s loving desire for us – He is prepared to sweep away whatever stands in the way (using violence at need). The truth of the matter is that, even in the light of God’s grace revealed in Jesus, we are still trying erect our own religious superstructure on the glorious foundation offered us in Christ crucified and risen.

The Temple had been intended as a place where people, God’s people, would interact with him in prayer – in worship, in listening, in sending out aid to the poor and the weak – instead these same had come to see it as an opportunity for a significant indulgence in free enterprise reinforced by religious edicts that had come to be oppressive and discriminating. In John’s account it comes as an early dramatic statement of what Jesus is about – setting the scene for the conflict between institutional religion and the astonishing freedom of relationship with God to which Jesus had come to call us.

 

Reflect on the ten commands of God to secure great relationships. (Exodus 20:1-17)

Ask yourself what is God trying to help me embrace? What is God trying to get me to reject or even repent of? Where is God challenging me to grow and change?

 

Repent of anything that you discover, especially those things that are firmly entrenched as a way of living or being that is contrary to what God has shown you to be His purpose. Bearing in mind that repenting is turning from the wrong way to the way God points us toward, go on to…

 

Respond by talking over with God what you’re beginning to discover about the longing of His heart for relationship with you; and the longing in His heart for you to relate readily and freely with others. Further, you can answer God’s longing by seeking for ways to build deeper and stronger relationships with others; this in fact a practical way of giving expression to the movement of repentance.

 

Relate what you have been finding out and the decisions you have made as a consequence to others, either in a house group, or a group to whom you are able to make yourself accountable.