The bewilderingly absurd Love of God

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 27th week in Ordinary time

October 9, 2019: Jonah 4:1-11; Luke 11:1-4

The readings today call our attention to how bewilderingly gracious God is! Even in the Old Testament times when people thought of God in terms of one who punishes the wrongdoers, the theology that we see in the first reading today was quite strong: 'thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love' (Jonah 4:2). 

To our human minds, as was the case with Jonah, it can appear sometimes to be undeserving, confusing and sometimes even absurd! A personification of that absurdity is Jesus himself - God's only son whom God did not spare, because "God so loved the world" (Jn 3:16)! And "while we were still sinners Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8). 

The simple and fundamental fact we are given to understand here is that we cannot understand everything, within the short span that we have and with the limited knowledge we have of the whole truth. But one thing we need to fix our minds on and make our point of view: that God is good, all the time, beyond measure and without conditions! 

That was the crux of Jesus' words, teachings, prayer and his very life. With him everything was aimed at just one thing: to reveal the goodness, the graciousness and the bewildering and 'absurd' love of God for God's children! Once we understand that, we would understand two basic facts: God is in perfect control and we are in God's hands!