Behold, we go up to Jerusalem
(Matthew 20. 18)
 
The Gesima season ends with an invitation to another beginning. Behold we go up. (Matt. 20. 18) We are invited on to yet another road, a spiritual road that leads to our death and new life with God. The road which we will tread is not an easy one. It will require a new and determined readiness. It will demand serious moral introspection. It will call for drastic measures as we learn how to hand over our sin to the Lord for death. It will demand a death to all else but the love of God in Jesus Christ. Progressively our journey will be an invitation on to the road that Jesus Christ is. I am the way, the truth, and the life, (John 14. 6) Follow me, Jesus says, for behold we go up to Jerusalem. In other words, behold we go up to the new city in which we shall find first our death and then our new life through the real operation of God’s loved in our lives.
         
Our journey will teach us many things about ourselves and about God’s Love. First, of course, we shall learn what happens when fallen man can no longer endure the love of God in heart of Jesus. Every one of us is fallen, fallen away from and out of the perfect operation of Love in our world. Fallen man rejects God’s Love. God’s Love never ceases to be itself and this means that it insists upon conditions that most men cannot endure. Love is made flesh for us in the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is that perfect Love that never ceases to offer itself to all people in all ages. But fallen man rejects this Love, this desire that is at once persistent and consistent. God’s Love persistently reveals the truth in Jesus Christ. That Love is consistent with the nature of God and His expectations for men. Long before the coming of Christ, the prophets foretold of how God’s Love would be received in the heart of sinful man. They foretold of how fallen man would not be able to endure the persistent presence of God’s Love in the world. Fallen man resists when God’s Love threatens to disrupt the constancy of his carefully contrived comfortable continuance. The prophets knew that most men would be hard pressed to abandon the good of this world for the sake of God’s Love.

Even the Apostles themselves bear witness to how difficult it will be to embrace the love of God in Jesus Christ. They believe that Jesus is Love of God made flesh. But they cannot see how He must be delivered unto the Gentiles.( Luke 18. 31) Nor can they allow themselves to imagine that He shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on. (Luke 18. 32) That Jesus will be demoralized, derided, and despoiled is beyond what they think is possible. Why? Their concept of Love knows no struggle, difficulty, or sacrifice. What they see of Love involves neither suffering nor self-abnegation. The Apostles desire to go up with Jesus to Jerusalem and yet they have no conception of what His Love must undergo in order to reconcile man to God. Jesus prophesies that they shall scourge Him and put Him to death. (Ibid, 33) But the Apostles understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.(Ibid, 34) Calvin says that they had formed the expectation for joyful and prosperous advancement and therefore had reckoned it to be in the highest degree absurd that Christ should be ignominiously crucified. (J. Calvin: Harmony of the Gospels, xvii) Their minds see only the prospect of going up to glory. They cannot see. That they are blind is confirmed in what follows.

And it came to pass, that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the way side begging: And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant. And they told him, that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by.(Luke 18. 35-37)  The Apostles do not understand what Jesus has said to them. They are blind, and so are we. And what do they find? A man who is blind in another way stumbles onto their path. They are spiritually blind, but he is physically blind. But this physically blind man sees what the Apostles and we do not. And he cried, saying, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.(Luke 18.38) What he could not see with his eyes, his saw and knew with his spirit. And so he cries out to Love made flesh, to Jesus, for mercy. In some deep way, he knows that the Jesus who is going up to Jerusalem will come down to minister to him. The Apostles are blind and thus cannot see the point. And they which went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace. (Luke 18. 39) The Apostles are confused enough already; so, why should they allow some pathetic blind man interrupt a journey already wrought with perplexity. Yet, the blind man sees. He sees that he must reach out to Love made flesh. He sees that he cannot let Love made flesh pass him by. With the eyes of faith and the determination of hope, he sees God’s Love and the Power in Jesus, and so he cried so much the more, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. (Luke 18. 39) Let the Apostles luxuriously wallow in philosophical perturbation. This man sees and will have the Love that condescends to men of low estate. Love is near. The blind man will procure its healing power. Behold we go up to Jerusalem. And as we go up, we find one who was blind and truly sees, who has only heard of this Jesus and yet understands. Love is going up to Jerusalem, and it will love and be loved. The relationship is established. Will we go up to Jerusalem? Will we follow Love, cry out to Love, implore Love’s mercy as we travel?
         
And Jesus stood, and commanded him to be brought unto him: and when he was come near, he asked him, Saying, What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee. (Luke 18. 40-42.) Yes, behold we go up to Jerusalem, and as we go up the Love that will be mocked, spitefully entreated, spitted upon, still loves. Love reaches out to all. Here to a new friend who knew more than the old friends because he truly saw who Jesus was and understood the power of His Love. The blind man reveals a faith that sees the Love that heals. This Love is indeed going up to His death. And so He finds one who can assist Him in beginning the process. This Love cannot help but love. This Love cannot help but die to Himself as He comes alive to God in the life of His brother. He sees faith and hope and responds with God’s Love. His says Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee. (Luke 18. 42) Love says to the blind man, because you see me inwardly and spiritually, you shall see me now outwardly and materially. And, blessed are they who have not seen, and yet believe. (John 20. 29) Behold, we go up to Jerusalem. (Idem)

On the journey up to Jerusalem, Love in the flesh is always Himself. It will never cease to be the Love received from the Father and passed on to all –friend and foe alike. Here a new friend asks for its power and receives it. The new friend has the eyes of faith with which to see. Will we desire this Love with the faith and hope of the blind men? We have been blind, but Love desires for us to see. As St. Paul reminds us this morning, Love or Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.  Charity never faileth. Love or charity is always itself. Love made flesh is always Himself. Jesus is Love or Charity made flesh. He suffers all resistance to God’s Love. His Love never ceases to be kind, benevolent, humble, and meek. He is never puffed up or proud, never seeks his own advantage and worldly comfort. In fact, Love always reaches down to lift others up. It stoops down to lift the blind man into the light of day. It will come down from the Cross to see and perceive that those who are killing it on Good Friday on the Hill of Calvary, might just have a change of heart on Holy Saturday in order to embrace it wholeheartedly on Easter Sunday.

Behold we go up to Jerusalem. (Idem) Will we begin to imagine that Love in the flesh must suffer innocently in order to reveal God’s persistent desire for all men’s salvation? Will we begin to imagine that Love in the flesh must die in order to welcome all men into new life? Will we participate in this reality that Jesus will offer to share with us? If we don’t, we do well to remember that it is always that one thing more that separates man from the Love of God in Jesus Christ. It might be the love that forgives the worst of sinners and their sin. It might be the love that calls forth more generosity at the cost of a sacrifice. It might be the love that must suffer real mental and even physical anguish and loss in order to be rewarded with new life and its gains. Whatever it is, and it is usually something seemingly insignificant in the eternal scheme of things. Will we open our eyes to behold these things that separate us from the knowledge and love of God in Jesus Christ? Will we see, with the blind man, that unless we believe and hope in the invisible work of God’s love in the heart of Jesus, we cannot be saved?

With the blind man then let us receive our sight today. Then let us forsake all, follow Him, and glorify God. (Ibid, 43) For, again with Calvin, those who are healed of their blindness show a grateful mind in presenting themselves to others as mirrors of the Grace of Christ. (Idem) And what we are to mirror is what Christ is about to do for us in Holy Lent.  Behold, we go up to Jerusalem. (Idem) Amen.
©wjsmartin
 

 





And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be?
(St. Luke viii. 9)
 
The New Testament is full of examples of parables; there are actually thirty in total. We encountered one of them last week in the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. A parable is an external and visible story or illustration that carries the mind into an interior and invisible truth. Archbishop Trench tells us that a parable always involves the story of human beings; never places their moral education in the power of talking trees, birds, or brute beasts; does not mock or deride man’s condition; and represents the creation accurately as the work of a loving and engaged God. (R.C. Trench: Notes on the Parables, p. 1-14) Thus a parable is not a fable. Nor is a parable a myth since myth normally conflates or blends the divine and human, heaven and earth, and good and evil in such a way that it pictures more of a conundrum than a solution. A parable, then, involves men and their reconciliation to God, focusing on one aspect or mode of human life that leads to or away from the generation of Divine Grace in the soul. A parable…moves in the spiritual world, and never transgresses the order of the natural world. A parable uses the external and visible to lead the mind to the discovery of inward and spiritual truth. (Idem, Trench)

So, the parables of the New Testament are always about the choices that man makes in this life and how those choices affect his ultimate destiny. Jesus uses parables not only because He wants men to know the Good, but also because He wants them to will it. He wants them to will it since without moral decision a man cannot be saved. St. John Chrysostom writes that Jesus uses parables to draw men unto him, and to provoke them and to signify that if they would convert, he would heal them’ (cf. Homily on the Gospel of Matthew, 45, 1-2). God never forces Himself upon any man. He respects man’s freedom. That freedom is all about the ability of faith to ponder, study, explore and investigate what is not immediately known but can be discovered and found beneath the surface of reality. But there is something more. In the New Testament, each of us is invited to discover the connection between the parables and Jesus. Pope Benedict says that Jesus Himself is the Parable…who, in the sign of His humanity, hides and at the same time reveals His Divinity. (Idem)
Of course, this concealing and disclosing of truth are not unique to Jesus’ parables. Just think about how created nature hides a truth about itself that awaits discovery through man’s contemplation of it. Or, in a slightly different way, think of the thoughts of men’s hearts that are reserved for those whom alone they love and trust. So nature and man in their respective integrities are no strangers to this method of revealing or sharing truth. And yet most men, it would seem, would rather be spared the effort and labor involved in the work of discovering it. St. Paul runs up against them in this morning’s Epistle lesson. Supposed spiritual masters and teachers have been teaching the flock at Corinth that St. Paul is blowing the process of conversion to Jesus Christ way out of proportion. True Christianity, they insist, involves really nothing more than a kind of occasional appeal to Jesus the glorious miracle worker. True Christianity, they said, shouldn’t involve anything like what St. Paul was teaching, but should be softer and gentler, characterized more by transfiguration transport than sanctified suffering. To which St. Paul responds almost violently and with what some scholars have interpreted as self-justifying arrogance.

But St. Paul has no interest in justifying himself; he desires only to offer his experience as a kind of parable for the honest man who will plant his feet on the ground and resolve to follow Jesus Christ. The parable of his life will give the external and visible witness of a true inner conversion. And it will make a mockery of any false teaching which can only stand to pervert and corrupt the sheep of Christ because it refuses to reveal the true nature of spiritual transformation that conversion entails. He says, Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck…in perils of robbers, in perils of waters, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen…in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness…(2 Cor. 23-27) In other words, conversion and discipleship involve much more than cursory and perfunctory faith in God’s Word, evidenced in the highs of the questionable superficial charismatic euphoria of his detractors. In fact, if man is to faithfully endure the Word of God as it moves him from the external and visible surface of emotional instability well into the depths of the fallen self that sees the need for salvation, he must suffer. Conversion involves suffering. Man must suffer to find the truth that he does not have. Who is weak, and I am not weak? the Apostle exclaims! (Cor. xi. 29) The parable of St. Paul’s life reveals that the work of becoming a Christian involves the discovery of utter weakness. The process is painful as the soul suffers to come to terms with the inner truth. The spiritual combat that welcome God’s saving Word in the face of the world’s enmity and opposition is painful. Yet, in the midst of the pain that suffering conversion brings, St. Paul insists, If I must needs glory, I will glory in the things which concern mine infirmities. (2 Cor. xi. 30) The confession of true weakness will yield to God’s strength. My Grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness. (2 Cor. xii. 9) The way of the Cross is the parable of that reduction of human life to the rule and governance of God’s Word.

The parable of St. Paul’s life can also be understood in relation to today’s  Parable of the Sower. A sower went out to sow his seed, Jesus tells us, and some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. (St. Luke viii. 5-7) Some Christians hear God’s Word superficially; the soil of their souls is trodden down by the habitual busy-ness and commerce of this world, and so they can never hear the Word. Conversion is ignored in favor of earthly goods. [Men] have exposed their hearts as a common road to every evil influence of the world, till they have become hard as the pavement…[having] laid waste the very soil in which the Word of God should have taken root…(Parables, Trench, p.60) These men are easy prey to the Devil and his ways since they live in a world that has no time for conversion. As St. Cyril says, Into…minds that are hard and unyielding, no divine or sacred word will enter. (On the Gospel: St. Cyril) They are hard and unyielding because their souls are addicted to the influence of all worldly things. And so when the Devil snatches God’s Word from them, they don’t even notice it.

Other Christians temporarily hear the Word of God with excitement and joy; it sounds so promising. But they prematurely anticipate its rewards without understanding the depth of faith that must establish its roots. They fall away because they cannot work out [their] salvation….with fear and trembling. (Phil. ii. 12) Salvation, they discover, will demand too much of that pain and suffering that they have spent their whole lives fleeing and escaping. Like the sun scorching the blade that has no deepness of earth, these men’s hearts [are] failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth….(St. Luke xxi. 26) These are shallow Christians who love the husk of Christianity –the sounds, smells, colors, and movements of a beautiful form. And, as St. Cyril writes, As long as [these] Christians are left in peace, they keep the faith; but should persecution arise, they will be of a mind to seek safety in flight. (Idem)

Finally, there are Christians who hear and more honestly receive God’s Word but are choked and killed by thorns which sprung up with it. (St. Luke viii. 7) Here are they in whom the Word is growing, but only alongside that inner anxiety, fear, worry, and looming despair that eat away at and finally kill faith. They are crushed by the cares, riches, and pleasures of this life. (St. Luke viii. 14) With Trench, the old man is not dead in them; it may seem dead for a while…but unless mortified in earnest, will presently revive in all its strength anew. (Ibid, p. 65) These thorns and briars symbolize temptations to past sins that have not effectively been overcome through the soul’s habituation to virtue. St. Paul knows only too well that one of these kinds of spiritual disposition always threatens his spiritual life as a parable of total surrender to Jesus Christ.

The conclusion of the Parable teaches us that the seed of God’s Word can grow up effectually only in deep, dark spiritual soil that is weeded and fertilized by faith that opens itself completely to God’s Grace. Only with much care, cultivation, and determined effort can the Word of God, Jesus Christ, take root downward and bear fruit upward. (Isaiah xxxvii. 31) If we follow St. Paul, then we learn that each condition of soul described in Jesus’ Parable could be a pitfall for us. Jesus knew this when He offered the Parable. Christ speaks to each of our natures. He challenges us to ask which level of receptivity best describes our relation to Him. Every level, save the last, is, after all, inadequate to salvation. So Christ challenges us to take the utmost care to cultivate the seed of His Word in our souls. With St. Paul then, let us conscientiously die to all that threatens the life of Christ the Word in our lives. Let us fight the good fight against evil in our lives, so that holding the Word with a noble and generous heart, and enduring courageously…we shall yield a harvest. (St. Luke viii. 15, Knox) And though we shall suffer, we shall also, like St. Paul, become a parable to the world that reveals how Jesus Christ, God’s own Word, can be planted in our souls and yield the harvest of salvation. Amen.
 

And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be?
(St. Luke viii. 9)
 
The New Testament is full of examples of parables; there are actually thirty in total. We encountered one of them last week in the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. A parable is an external and visible story or illustration that carries the mind into an interior and invisible truth. Archbishop Trench tells us that a parable always involves the story of human beings; never places their moral education in the power of talking trees, birds, or brute beasts; does not mock or deride man’s condition; and represents the creation accurately as the work of a loving and engaged God. (R.C. Trench: Notes on the Parables, p. 1-14) Thus a parable is not a fable. Nor is a parable a myth since myth normally conflates or blends the divine and human, heaven and earth, and good and evil in such a way that it pictures more of a conundrum than a solution. A parable, then, involves men and their reconciliation to God, focusing on one aspect or mode of human life that leads to or away from the generation of Divine Grace in the soul. A parable…moves in the spiritual world, and never transgresses the order of the natural world. A parable uses the external and visible to lead the mind to the discovery of inward and spiritual truth. (Idem, Trench)

So, the parables of the New Testament are always about the choices that man makes in this life and how those choices affect his ultimate destiny. Jesus uses parables not only because He wants men to know the Good, but also because He wants them to will it. He wants them to will it since without moral decision a man cannot be saved. St. John Chrysostom writes that Jesus uses parables to draw men unto him, and to provoke them and to signify that if they would convert, he would heal them’ (cf. Homily on the Gospel of Matthew, 45, 1-2). God never forces Himself upon any man. He respects man’s freedom. That freedom is all about the ability of faith to ponder, study, explore and investigate what is not immediately known but can be discovered and found beneath the surface of reality. But there is something more. In the New Testament, each of us is invited to discover the connection between the parables and Jesus. Pope Benedict says that Jesus Himself is the Parable…who, in the sign of His humanity, hides and at the same time reveals His Divinity. (Idem)

Of course, this concealing and disclosing of truth are not unique to Jesus’ parables. Just think about how created nature hides a truth about itself that awaits discovery through man’s contemplation of it. Or, in a slightly different way, think of the thoughts of men’s hearts that are reserved for those whom alone they love and trust. So nature and man in their respective integrities are no strangers to this method of revealing or sharing truth. And yet most men, it would seem, would rather be spared the effort and labor involved in the work of discovering it. St. Paul runs up against them in this morning’s Epistle lesson. Supposed spiritual masters and teachers have been teaching the flock at Corinth that St. Paul is blowing the process of conversion to Jesus Christ way out of proportion. True Christianity, they insist, involves really nothing more than a kind of occasional appeal to Jesus the glorious miracle worker. True Christianity, they said, shouldn’t involve anything like what St. Paul was teaching, but should be softer and gentler, characterized more by transfiguration transport than sanctified suffering. To which St. Paul responds almost violently and with what some scholars have interpreted as self-justifying arrogance.

But St. Paul has no interest in justifying himself; he desires only to offer his experience as a kind of parable for the honest man who will plant his feet on the ground and resolve to follow Jesus Christ. The parable of his life will give the external and visible witness of a true inner conversion. And it will make a mockery of any false teaching which can only stand to pervert and corrupt the sheep of Christ because it refuses to reveal the true nature of spiritual transformation that conversion entails. He says, Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck…in perils of robbers, in perils of waters, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen…in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness…(2 Cor. 23-27) In other words, conversion and discipleship involve much more than cursory and perfunctory faith in God’s Word, evidenced in the highs of the questionable superficial charismatic euphoria of his detractors. In fact, if man is to faithfully endure the Word of God as it moves him from the external and visible surface of emotional instability well into the depths of the fallen self that sees the need for salvation, he must suffer. Conversion involves suffering. Man must suffer to find the truth that he does not have. Who is weak, and I am not weak? the Apostle exclaims! (Cor. xi. 29) The parable of St. Paul’s life reveals that the work of becoming a Christian involves the discovery of utter weakness. The process is painful as the soul suffers to come to terms with the inner truth. The spiritual combat that welcome God’s saving Word in the face of the world’s enmity and opposition is painful. Yet, in the midst of the pain that suffering conversion brings, St. Paul insists, If I must needs glory, I will glory in the things which concern mine infirmities. (2 Cor. xi. 30) The confession of true weakness will yield to God’s strength. My Grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness. (2 Cor. xii. 9) The way of the Cross is the parable of that reduction of human life to the rule and governance of God’s Word.

The parable of St. Paul’s life can also be understood in relation to today’s  Parable of the Sower. A sower went out to sow his seed, Jesus tells us, and some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. (St. Luke viii. 5-7) Some Christians hear God’s Word superficially; the soil of their souls is trodden down by the habitual busy-ness and commerce of this world, and so they can never hear the Word. Conversion is ignored in favor of earthly goods. [Men] have exposed their hearts as a common road to every evil influence of the world, till they have become hard as the pavement…[having] laid waste the very soil in which the Word of God should have taken root…(Parables, Trench, p.60) These men are easy prey to the Devil and his ways since they live in a world that has no time for conversion. As St. Cyril says, Into…minds that are hard and unyielding, no divine or sacred word will enter. (On the Gospel: St. Cyril) They are hard and unyielding because their souls are addicted to the influence of all worldly things. And so when the Devil snatches God’s Word from them, they don’t even notice it.

Other Christians temporarily hear the Word of God with excitement and joy; it sounds so promising. But they prematurely anticipate its rewards without understanding the depth of faith that must establish its roots. They fall away because they cannot work out [their] salvation….with fear and trembling. (Phil. ii. 12) Salvation, they discover, will demand too much of that pain and suffering that they have spent their whole lives fleeing and escaping. Like the sun scorching the blade that has no deepness of earth, these men’s hearts [are] failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth….(St. Luke xxi. 26) These are shallow Christians who love the husk of Christianity –the sounds, smells, colors, and movements of a beautiful form. And, as St. Cyril writes, As long as [these] Christians are left in peace, they keep the faith; but should persecution arise, they will be of a mind to seek safety in flight. (Idem)

Finally, there are Christians who hear and more honestly receive God’s Word but are choked and killed by thorns which sprung up with it. (St. Luke viii. 7) Here are they in whom the Word is growing, but only alongside that inner anxiety, fear, worry, and looming despair that eat away at and finally kill faith. They are crushed by the cares, riches, and pleasures of this life. (St. Luke viii. 14) With Trench, the old man is not dead in them; it may seem dead for a while…but unless mortified in earnest, will presently revive in all its strength anew. (Ibid, p. 65) These thorns and briars symbolize temptations to past sins that have not effectively been overcome through the soul’s habituation to virtue. St. Paul knows only too well that one of these kinds of spiritual disposition always threatens his spiritual life as a parable of total surrender to Jesus Christ.

The conclusion of the Parable teaches us that the seed of God’s Word can grow up effectually only in deep, dark spiritual soil that is weeded and fertilized by faith that opens itself completely to God’s Grace. Only with much care, cultivation, and determined effort can the Word of God, Jesus Christ, take root downward and bear fruit upward. (Isaiah xxxvii. 31) If we follow St. Paul, then we learn that each condition of soul described in Jesus’ Parable could be a pitfall for us. Jesus knew this when He offered the Parable. Christ speaks to each of our natures. He challenges us to ask which level of receptivity best describes our relation to Him. Every level, save the last, is, after all, inadequate to salvation. So Christ challenges us to take the utmost care to cultivate the seed of His Word in our souls. With St. Paul then, let us conscientiously die to all that threatens the life of Christ the Word in our lives. Let us fight the good fight against evil in our lives, so that holding the Word with a noble and generous heart, and enduring courageously…we shall yield a harvest. (St. Luke viii. 15, Knox) And though we shall suffer, we shall also, like St. Paul, become a parable to the world that reveals how Jesus Christ, God’s own Word, can be planted in our souls and yield the harvest of salvation. Amen.
©wjsmartin
 
©

 Look at all Nature, through all its Height and Depth, in all its Variety of working Powers; it is what it is for this only End, that the hidden Riches, the invisible Powers, Blessings, Glory, and Love of the unsearchable God, may become visible, sensible, and manifest in and by it. (Spirit of Love: ii.1, William Law)
When God the Holy Trinity makes, He makes as Being, Knowing, and Love. What we mean to say is that He who Is, Knows what He does, and Loves to do it. The three names of Being, Knowing, and Loving further clarify God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. So the Father who Always Is, Always Knows Himself, and Always Loves to Know Himself. Also, the Father who Always Is, Always Loves, and Always Knows His Love. In Knowing His Loving, and in Loving His Knowing, God reveals His Being in and through all that is other than Himself.
That He always reveals His Being, Knowing, and Loving is certain. That we are given opportunity to see it is possible only through creation as we know it, in our time and in our space. This we call our history. It might not have been. It might be that there are other histories of time and space or other completely different creations through which God reveals Himself. No matter. For our purposes, in this creation, all that has been created by God is given through Knowledge for Love and through Love for Knowledge. We are invited to see, grasp, understand His Love that makes all things. We are urged also to love, appreciate, cherish, and treasure His Knowledge that informs and defines all things.     
God Almighty reveals to us the inestimable worth of His nature. It cannot be valued because the moment that we are made rich by discovering one part of it, another part, concealed and yet present to curious faith, manifests our poverty. God’s power is present and known and yet hidden and unknown. He blesses us with newfound consciousness of our own knowledge and love of Him and also with their failure. Love knows that were He to reveal His whole Being, Knowing, and Loving to us, we would rest content in our own created nature and not in the Creator. So He calls us forward always from darkness and into light and into light that then becomes darkness. His glory is present and palpable. His glory is then distant but desirable. His Knowledge demands that His love should reveal His Being visibly, sensibly, and tangibly. Yet to the faith of the earnest pilgrim He is present and He is absent because His Knowledge is known and unknown through a Love that comes and goes so that we might continue to follow Him.