Healing the past

Spiritual growth can sometimes be the cause of great but worthwhile pain. The other day a friend was telling me how he remembered something he had done years ago before his spiritual awakening, and how he had never realized until now just how terrible a thing it had been and how it has caused pain for others. His new realization really hurt.

I recalled similar experiences I have had where the insight of the present opened my eyes to see with horror just how serious the sins of the past had been, but how at the time I was oblivious to the wrong I was doing.

Again, a painful experience—but at the same time a healing experience, because it gives new depth of meaning to the Jesus Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. The pain of the realization is actually a gift of grace from the Lord. Healing is often painful.

What more could I say about this to my friend, I wondered. Well, at Lauds this morning I received an answer as we prayed a passage from Isaiah 38. I’m not sure where this particular translation came from, but it is the one we have in our office books and it was just what I needed and so another gift of grace from the Lord. Here’s the passage:

For you, Lord, my heart will live,

You gave me back my spirit;

You cured me, kept me alive,

Changed my sickness into health.

And you have held back my life

From the pit of doom.

You have cast far from your sight

Every one of my sins. (Isaiah 38: 16-17)

There is a final verse of the passage which has particular meaning for monks:

O Lord, come to our rescue

And we shall sing psalms

All the days of our life

In the house of the Lord.

I thank God that he has set me in a place where this verse is a daily reality.

God bless you.

He will complete His work for you

Once again we turn to the prophet Isaiah for our Advent meditation. This passage is filled with promise for all of us:

For just as from the heavens

the rain and snow come down

and do not return there

till they have watered the earth,

making it fertile and fruitful,

giving seed to him who sows

and bread to him who eats,

So shall my word be

that goes forth from my mouth;

it shall not return to me void,

but shall do my will,

achieving the end for which I sent it.  (Isaiah 55:10  NAB translation)

The interpretive key to this passage, for me, is my word, which reminds me of  the beginning of the Gospel of John: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

The Word is Jesus Christ, come down from heaven.

He waters the earth: we are the earth, thirsting for God all the days of our lives. The water that Jesus brings is the living water that he promised to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. He promises that if we drink of this water we shall never again thirst. Our thirst will be satisfied with the coming of the Lord. What is dry and cracked and barren in our lives will be made fertile, and bear fruit—perhaps things which you have never even imagined up until this point in your life.

Christ will come to do the will of the Father, and achieve the end for which He was sent: our salvation, our healing, His forgiveness, His grace and truth, His mercy and compassion, and His love for you which is so great that He died for you—you alone, if necessary.

And then, having achieved all of this, He will return to the Father. And your life will never again be the same.

And so, no matter where you are at this point in time—whether you are standing at the peak of a mountain which you have struggled to climb or whether you are lost in a pit or in a valley of near-despair, consider this passage and realize that Jesus Christ is being sent into the world—and to you—to achieve His Father’s purpose for you in your life.

Some of you may already have had evidence of this in your life; some of you may be waiting for the gift to touch you and transform you. All of you—no, all of us—are once again promised a great and wonderful gift.

Celebrate the coming of this gift, and your Advent will be blessed. And your Christmas will be filled with a delight that no one can take from you.  God bless you!

Tomorrow will be my last post for 2015, and I will resume posting again on January 3, 2016. Thank you for reading these reflections and thank you for your kind words and encouragement. Please spread the word, post these reflections on your own timelines, and send me email addresses for my mailing list.

Thank you so much.