Reflection - Attraction

By Steve Hall

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012321.cfm
Hebrews 9:2-3, 11-14
Mark 3:20-21

What is attractive about the holy? What entices people to follow when they sense it? These crowds that gathered, the one’s making it difficult, even impossible for Jesus and his disciples to eat — why did they come? And what were they looking for? Some, surely, were pursuing the possibility of healing in a world deficient in medical knowledge; but they were not the majority. Most came because they were drawn by the presence of holiness even if they were ignorant of what the term means.

Years ago my wife and I walked with our young grandson in the garden pathways of a long established convent. The place was in central California and it held the wide variety of flora that the California climate offers. At one point, for some unknown reason he stopped, thought for a minute and said: this is a God place isn’t it. Holiness invites, it welcomes. It is known in innocence. By its very nature it wants you to know it more. I believe those who crowded Jesus and his disciples knew that he could connect them to the holy. That’s why they came.

These were not a people without a past. They were not just among the most recent of Rome’s conquests. They were a people formed and shaped, forged and molded by their history. By the time of Jesus, the God of Israel had been known and had been part of their lives for almost two thousand years. He was not like other gods, molded from clay or metals; neither was he found in the likeness of some animal or force of nature. He was not confined to a particular hill or mountain or river or lake. Neither was his power restricted to a particular field of human endeavor or monumental natural events. He was not created. He did not grow into his supernatural office. He did not age nor was he restricted by time. His behavior did not reflect that of men; nor was he embroiled in a tumult of emotions. Placating Him was not possible and attempts to do so we’re useless. He was totally beyond the realm of material things, yet was both their origin and their means of existence. This was the God who was neither discovered nor deduced, but the one who had made himself known to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

During this age of men it was not unusual for god’s to come and go. Some were victims of their own ineptitude. Some were conquered in battle and subsequently forgotten or adopted by the triumphant. Some simply faded away. Some survived long enough to be mocked by their creators. We do not know if the Holy One of Israel had previously attempted an introduction to men less responsive than Abraham; but we do know that it was he who took the initiative to become part of human history. We also know that His survival was not dependent upon power, though he did use that power to manifest his presence. Nor was he defeated in battle, though he sometimes allowed his Chosen to be defeated when they abandoned him. On occasion he was forsaken or betrayed but he never allowed himself to be forgotten. Once he was known, he was never again unknown. Yet, the mystery of this, the God of Abraham, never ceased to be discovered anew. Because he was God, there was always something more to discover; and it was beyond any man’s capacity to receive a total revelation all at once. One of the most profound characteristics of the holy is its depth, it’s breadth, its non-existent limits. As expressed in the hymn, Amazing Grace: “When we’ve been there ten thousand years . . . We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise. . . .” This is true, not just as an expression of eternity, but because of the infinity there is to discover. There are few things in human life that are similar. Love probably comes the closest.

So, here was Jesus, pressed upon by a people who were intense about hearing of the holy once again. The gradual but persistent revelation that had had inherited through the unfolding of two thousand years was insufficient to satiate their desire for the holy. They needed to confirm what they knew. They needed to hear again of those events through which God had made himself known. They needed to be strengthened in their conviction that he would fulfill his promises. They needed to know that God was with them now just as in the past he had been with their ancestors.

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had long ago become part of the history of mankind. Their prayer, like ours, was a simple one: Be with us now.