The Contradictions of God

 This morning's Lectio Divina comes from today's Gospel reading, St. Matthew 22:35-46. Not every day can be just the Prologue from Ohrid. I also have a few articles that aren't Lectio Divina in the works currently, I just have to get my thoughts onto digital paper.

 

35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him,

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,

and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it,

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

41While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The son of David. 43He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying,

44 The Lord said unto my Lord,

Sit thou on my right hand,

till I make thine enemies thy footstool?

45If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? 46And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions. (KJV)

Jesus is seemingly full of contradictions. He is Man, but He is also God - not half of one and half of the other, but fully both. He died, and yet He lives. He is the Prince of Peace, but He is also the Conqueror and the Victor. He is the Son of David, but also his Lord.

It is hard for our limited human minds to grasp the concept of our unlimited God. The Pharisees could not grasp that the Christ that they hoped for would be anything other than man - even with Jesus strongly hinting towards such.

The Pharisees were seemingly stuck in their preconceived notions of who they thought that their Messiah should be. How often does the same happen to us that we get stuck with an image of who we think that God should be?

The world, the media, and even many Christians often portray God as an angry sky wizard who grants us our wishes if we do what He says. They also have a converse image of Him being a meek entity who loves us so much that He would never throw us in the Lake of Fire for such a silly thing as unbelief. 

I remember as a child basically in practice equating God with Santa Claus - if I prayed hard enough then God would give me that toy I wanted, or that I'd pass that test that I didn't study for. Or that my parents wouldn't divorce, and that we could be a happy family again.

But God doesn't give us the things that we want - He gives us what we need, even if we eventually end up squandering His gifts. Actions have consequences, and a truly loving God wants us to learn from our mistakes - if He just gave us everything we asked for then we would never learn.

We should love God because He loves us enough to correct us. We should love God because He is our Creator and before He formed us in the womb, He knew us. And if we love God then we should keep His commandments.

God does not fit neatly into a box. Neither does God's love fit neatly with the world's idea of what love is. Yes, love unconditionally, but realize that  to do so does not mean to let others do what they want - it means to correct when someone is in error. It means to let someone come to you with their cares, but to also be a voice of reason and guidance when they stray from the path.

If we love Christ we will feed His sheep. A shepherd does not fill his sheep with what is detrimental to them, but he feeds them what is good because he loves them. So too should we feed what is good to Christ's sheep because we love them.