What
is the image we have of God? Perhaps he appears to us as a severe
judge, as someone who curtails our freedom and the way we live our
lives. But the Scriptures everywhere tell us that God is the Living
One, the one who bestows life and points the way to fullness of life. I
think of the beginning of the Book of Genesis: God fashions man out of
the dust of the earth; he breathes in his nostrils the breath of life,
and man becomes a living being (cf. 2:7). God is the source of life;
thanks to his breath, man has life. God’s breath sustains the entire
journey of our life on earth. I also think of the calling of Moses,
where the Lord says that he is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and
the God of Jacob, the God of the living. When he sends Moses to Pharaoh
to set his people free, he reveals his name: “I am who I am”, the God
who enters into our history, sets us free from slavery and death, and
brings life to his people because he is the Living One. I also think of
the gift of the Ten Commandments: a path God points out to us towards a
life which is truly free and fulfilling. The commandments are not a
litany of prohibitions, but a great “Yes!”: a yes to God, to Love, to
life. Dear friends, our lives are fulfilled in God alone. He is the
Living One!
2. Today’s Gospel brings us another step forward.
Jesus allows a woman who was a sinner to approach him during a meal in
the house of a Pharisee, scandalizing those present. Not only does he
let the woman approach but he even forgives her sins, saying: “Her sins,
which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is
forgiven little, loves little” (Lk 7:47). Jesus is the
incarnation of the Living God, the one who brings life amid deeds of
death, sin, selfishness and self-absorption. Jesus accepts, loves,
uplifts, encourages, forgives, restores the ability to walk, gives back
life. Throughout the Gospels we see how Jesus by his words and actions
brings the transforming life of God. This was the experience of the
woman who anointed the feet of the Lord with ointment: she felt
understood, loved, and she responded by a gesture of love: she let
herself be touched by God’s mercy, she obtained forgiveness and she
started a new life.
This was also the experience of the Apostle
Paul, as we heard in the second reading: “The life I now live in the
flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself
for me” (Gal 2:20).
3. God is the Living One; Jesus brings us the life of God; the Holy Spirit gives and keeps us in our new life as true sons and daughters of God. But all too often, people do not choose life, they do not accept the “Gospel of Life” but let themselves be led by ideologies and ways of thinking that block life, that do not respect life, because they are dictated by selfishness, self-interest, profit, power and pleasure, and not by love, by concern for the good of others. It is the eternal dream of wanting to build the city of man without God, without God’s life and love – a new Tower of Babel. It is the idea that rejecting God, the message of Christ, the Gospel of Life, will somehow lead to freedom, to complete human fulfilment. As a result, the Living God is replaced by fleeting human idols which offer the intoxication of a flash of freedom, but in the end bring new forms of slavery and death. The wisdom of the Psalmist says: “The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes” (Ps 19:8).
Dear brothers and sisters, let us look to God as the God of Life, let us look to his law, to the Gospel message, as the way to freedom and life. The Living God sets us free! Let us say “Yes” to love and not selfishness. Let us say “Yes” to life and not death. Let us say “Yes” to freedom and not enslavement to the many idols of our time. In a word, let us say “Yes” to the God who is love, life and freedom, and who never disappoints
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