GOD KNOWS THE WHOLE
“Trust God: The wisest people are those who, although unrelenting in
their quest for answers, trustingly leave some of the problems in the hands of
God who knows the whole.” (Reverend Dale E. Turner)
Reverend Dale E.
Turner wrote this, Trust God: The wisest people are those who, although
unrelenting in their quest for answers, trustingly leave some of the problems
in the hands of God who knows the whole.
In Saint Mark's
Gospel for this Sunday, St. Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi, is a key
moment. The first seven chapters have revealed Jesus as the Messiah, who
mediates and prays about the power of his heavenly Father by teaching and
healing with authority. The climax of this first part of the Gospel is reached
when Peter declares, "You are the Christ." The second part of the
Gospel begins to reveal what kind of Messiah Jesus will be. The Son of Man, the
Anointed one, is a Suffering Servant. The revelation comes as a great surprise
to Peter. He objects and is sternly rebuked by Jesus for thinking as humans do
and not as God does.
What does it mean
to you to think as God does? The answer is found in the first reading from the
Prophet Isaiah and also the prophecy of Jesus the Christ. To think as God does
is to set one's face like flint, to take up one's cross, trusting absolutely
that God is our help and, therefore, we can never be disgraced. If we first we
think as our heavenly Father does, then we show this by doing what St. James
calls the works of faith.
In today's
Responsorial Psalm we acclaim: to walk before the Lord, in the land of the
living (Ps 116:9.) This psalm, through its yearly recitation at the Paschal
meal recalls how Jesus travelled to Jerusalem and his death, in that ultimate acceptance
of the Father's will. Jesus's purpose in coming to earth was to do that will.
God knows the
whole!