Holy Spirit of Jesus, help me receive your word by faith and so enter into your rest...

 
Hebrews 4:1-16 & Mark 2:1-12

 
The Good News proclaimed by Christ Jesus, in all of its simplicity and its mysterious complexity, is able  to lead us into the ‘rest’ that is the extraordinary ‘peace’ of God.  And it is this simplicity and mysterious complexity of the word that makes it so easily swept away by the crowded plans and plots of day to day life. This was notably the situation when four friends let their paralyzed friend down into the presence of Jesus in Capernaum at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus did not launch into a long explanation of paralysis, nor even chide the man for his own or his parents’ deficits, but simply proclaimed two short phrases of life-giving Truth. “Your sins are forgiven you” and “Arise take up your bed and walk” threw the legalist religious people in the crowd into a frenzy and an argument with Jesus. But these same two simple “words” to the paralytic released his soul from temporal and eternal damnation and healed his infirmity – of body, mind and soul!  In my life, do I, like the legalists compare and complain –and  so miss the impact of the Good News of Jesus’ Light and Love? Or do I receive the extraordinarily simple words of eternal truth, life and love, from the Holy Spirit of God through scripture and prayer with an open and an accepting heart, letting them release and heal me as well?  Holy Spirit of Jesus, help me receive your word by faith and so enter into your rest.     
 
Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest… (Hebrews 4: 11)
 
The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. The writer of Hebrews 4:12
 
Broken bread, sustaining us in sorrow,
Wine poured out to toast our joy;
Exodus and new to morrow,
Life’s full promise to enjoy!
Gladdening every human story,
Word made flesh reveals his glory.
Bernadette Gasslein, In the  v. 3 Darkness Shines the Splendour
 
See https://vimeo.com/308208360 for a youth choir singing this full hymn.
 
 
Soli ad gloriam Dei
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