Thoughts which carry me to Jesus, and to the Cross….

“In his pain Manasseh asked the LORD his God for mercy and truly humbled himself before the God of his ancestors. When he prayed to the LORD, the LORD responded to him and answered favorably his cry for mercy. The LORD brought him back to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh realized that the LORD is the true God. After this Manasseh built up the outer wall of the City of David on the west side of the Gihon in the valley to the entrance of the Fish Gate and all around the terrace; he made it much higher. He placed army officers in all the fortified cities in Judah. He removed the foreign gods and images from the LORD’s temple and all the altars he had built on the hill of the LORD’s temple and in Jerusalem; he threw them outside the city. He erected the altar of the LORD and offered on it peace offerings and thank offerings. He told the people of Judah to serve the LORD God of Israel. The people continued to offer sacrifices at the high places, but only to the LORD their God.” (2 Chronicles 33:12–17, NET)

“Certainly you will see it with your very own eyes— you will see the wicked paid back. For you have taken refuge in the LORD, my shelter, the sovereign One.” (Psalm 91:8–9, NET)

For they do not believe that the time of their affliction is at hand, and they do not want to believe it, even though they can see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, touch it, and feel it.

(It is the position of some would-be teachers that everyone who comes into the kingdom of God by faith immediately obtains all there is of God’s spiritual provision.
I believe that such a teaching is as deadly as cyanide to the individual Christian life. It kills all hope of spiritual advance and causes many believers to adopt what I call “the creed of contentment.”

One day as he was walking with blessed Francis, the saint said to him: “Brother, I tell you that from now on you do not have to confess your tribulation to anyone. Do not be afraid. Whatever happens to you that is not your doing will not be to your blame, but to your credit. Whenever you are troubled, I give you my permission just to say seven Our Fathers.” The brother wondered how the saint could have known about this; smiling and overjoyed, he got over the temptation in a short time.

Oftentimes in his encyclicals, Benedict invites the faithful to encounter Christ through Scripture and the sacraments. The theme of encountering Christ pervades all his writings. A selection of these papal writings illuminates the concept of revelation and the Christocentric approach that he already unfolded profoundly at Vatican II.

I look at the news this morning and social media, and to be honest, I don’t know what to do with it.  I see so much that is a a fulfillment of Luther’s words in the first quote, where the affliction is denied, as we are told if this sie gets their way, everything will be okay, only to be echoed by the other side. And the tension and trauma that increases where the two sides collide is written off, as justifiable. Further, many on both sides are described by Tozer, as those who count themselves as good, llving Chirstians because of something that happened in the past, a baptism, a prayer, a moment of enlightenment that guarantees their being in the right, apart from anything meaningful in their interaction with God today.

They know something is wrong, but they see it as completely outside of their own lives, their own relationship with God. Maybe it is because of that they cry out for God’s vengeance without seeing Christ’s desire to save all, their adversaries and themselves.

Francis’s advise to a man caught in such tribulation is simple. Pray, and pray intimately to the Father. Say the pray Jesus taught, not as a rote, magical incantation, but as a prayer…intimately seeking the intercession of God in your life, to see His will be accomplished, to see His care for all come into being.

Benedict encourages the same thing – for people to encounter and relate to Jesus through the conduits God has provided for just that purpose, for only that purpose. The word of God (aka the scriptures) and the Sacraments are their for us to fulfil some duty, to ring up enough points that we gain some prize. They are times where God opens up His heart, that the Spirit can operate on ours, opening it up and bringing a life that we lack.

This is what happened with Manasseh, the son of King Hezekiah. Completely overwhelmed by the consequences of his, and his people’s sin, he finally cries out to God, and as God responds to his cries, Manasseh realizes that God is the only true God, the only God that can save and transform him. The broken king, looking for hope finds it–not as we look for hope, but in simply praying to a God he did not know well, who responded.

That change is Manasseh was truly revolutionary. He became the King, the leader he should have been, with the absolute priority of helping people grow in their relationship to God. He removed the obstacles, the false gods they were tempted to worship and look to for assistance. He restored the offerings that were given, not to appease God, but to recognize and receive the gifts God poured out on His people! To go from being one of the most evil of kings, to being a holy king–perhaps one of the best.

Not through his own efforts, but because God heard his cry for help, and he came to know this was the one true God.

May all our leaders, all of them, find God answering them, as we see the consequences of sin blow up around us. And I pray, that they lead us, as do all leader, to see the LORD our God.  Amen.

Robinson, P. W. (1539). On the Councils and the Church. In H. J. Hillerbrand, K. I. Stjerna, T. J. Wengert, & P. W. Robinson (Eds.), Church and Sacraments (Vol. 3, p. 329). Fortress Press.
Tozer, A. W., & Smith, G. B. (2008). Mornings with Tozer: Daily Devotional Readings. Moody Publishers.
Pasquale, G., ed. (2011). Day by Day with Saint Francis: 365 Meditations (p. 167). New City Press.
De Gaál, E. (2018). O Lord, I Seek Your Countenance: Explorations and Discoveries in Pope Benedict XVI’s Theology (M. Levering, Ed.; p. 194). Emmaus Academic.