Sacred Heart

Friday after the second Sunday after Pentecost

Readings: Ezekiel 34:11-16; Psalm 22; Romans 5:5-11; Luke 15:3-7

The subject today is the heart of Jesus. The heart can be understood to be that from which flows, among other things, our emotions. Jesus, being man would have no doubt, experienced the flow of emotions. So, what were his emotions like? Well, Jesus was also God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The reading from Deuteronomy 7:6-11 tells us what the nature of God's heart is like. It reads: 'for you are a people holy to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession ... it was not because you were more in number ... it is because the LORD loves you.' Notice that when the LORD loves you he possesses you. The love of God consumes.

Now, this possessiveness of God towards those whom he loves should not surprise us. For, God said in his commandment to his beloved people, 'you shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you should not bow down to serve them; for I the LORD is a jealous God.' At first glance this word 'jealous' might connote a negative image of God. Somewhat, in the sense of, a child has a teddy bear, plays with it all day, and refuses anyone else a play with it. We might says this child is selfish.

However, there is another way of looking at it. Something might be so precious to you that you simply do not want to lose sight of it. You want it always in your sight because you do not want anything to happen to it. What is more comforting to know than that the almighty, sovereign God of heaven and earth is at every moment of the day wanting to play with you. That he wants you all by yourself. Some way in scripture it says, what God is there like ours, what God is so near to his people.

The truth is, brothers and sisters, the depth of this love is too deep for our finite minds to comprehend. How can this be true? Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, says in Romans chapter 5 'while we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one would hardly die for a righteous man - though perhaps for a good man one would dare even to die. But God showed his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.'

God is still jealous for his people. His heart, in that of Jesus Christ, has not changed. The question is: are we willing to, do we want this type of love to cover us? Do we want to be so possessed? Or, are we to afraid to lose ourselves? Today that choice is yours.