Thursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
We have all seen a rescue mission on a TV show, movie, or fairy tale. People get caught up in a dangerous spot, and they can’t get out with help from the outside. God has similar plans for humanity. Ever since the fall, we’ve been caught up in sin. And, ever since the fall, God has been making plans for our liberation.
The best plots in TV shows involve some cooperation on behalf of the victims. The rescuers may need information, or may need people to get away from a particular wall or window. In a similar way, God requires our cooperation in our liberation. In ancient Egypt, the Israelites needed to celebrate the Passover supper and walk out. Jesus asks us to take up his yolk. Our “yes” to the Lord’s invitation is just the starting point. Like the nation of Israel, we have to keep saying yes, year after year in the dessert.
Is it worth it? What does the yolk of Jesus look like, and how does it compare to the alternative of slavery to sin? Like the Israelites in slavery, that life is more secure. You show up to work and everything else is taken care of: the headmasters give you food, water, and a place to live. Out in the desert and later in the Promised Land, Israel owns its own fate. If they sin, the land will not produce, but if they accomplish their holy work, the land will flow with milk and honey.
Similarly, we are offered by Christ a generative peace. God’s plan for our liberation from sin involves dying to self and rising to new life, with our love and purpose grounded in God and the good of one another. This life of love is easier and lighter; the hard part is caused by us holding on to the old way, the sinful way. What do you need to offer up today? How is God calling you to die to self and rise to new life? Let us take up Jesus’s easy yoke, day after day.
-Chris Nieport