Reflection on the Word for the Sunday of October 17, 2021
GOD IS OUR REFUGE– Psalm 91:9-16
Because you have made the LORD your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot. Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name. When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them. With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation." ……………………………………………………………………………
In the year of 1297 at the onset of the Battle of Stirling Bridge, William Wallace, the Scottish war hero and noble knight, had mustered his troops and, as legend has it, and he gave them a famous speech to motivate them to withstand the English attack. A huge English army came to invade and subdue Scotland. The Scots were enormously outnumbered and inferior in equipment, especially regarding the heavily cavalry and the Welsh longbow archers assembled and drafted by King Edward I of England.
Although the movie, entitled Braveheart, has some historical inaccuracy in the storytelling and regarding the medieval facts on the ground, still according to tradition, Wallace told to the gathered Scots, that they have two options. Either they will fight or they can run away as well. Famously he said, that you can run away from a battle or before the battle, but just a few years later when you will be laying on your deathbed, you will wish that you would have fought today for freedom and liberty. We can die today that is certain, but we will die one day, anyway, and on that day only this will be accounted for you, whether you ran or you made a stand to fight for your people and for your country you vowed defend with your blood.
Although vastly outnumbered, the Scots routed the English feudal army of 3,000 cavalry and around 10,000 infantry. The invading troops were well trained, well equipped and confident in victory. The Scots fought for their land and their independency. They stopped the English cold. However, the Bible warns the Israelites and all the other nations, as well, that you are not allowed to dance on the graves of your fallen enemies, rather you have to mourn them. Nonetheless, the Scots danced, and it was a grave mistake, proven by the later outcome.
One thing is certain, that if you want freedom on Earth, you have to be ready to die for your freedom. However, if you want eternal life, your earthly desires must die in your heart, wishing for Heaven only. Jesus said once in the Gospel of Matthew that “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
You will get what you believe in. Most people even get what they desire for, because they believe in their desires and in that that they deserve the fulfilling of their desires. Nonetheless, sooner or later Heaven will provide everyone what they really need, and that is ultimate justice. It is pretty obvious, because sooner or later almost everyone dies, except a few who ascends to Heaven like Enoch and Elijah. Otherwise and in general, everyone reaps what they had sown.
How can we make the Lord our refuge and our dwelling place? If anything else can serve you as a refuge or as a partial refuge on Earth, then God is not your refuge, neither your dwelling place. God can be your refuge only, if God is your only refuge.
Jesus famously said in the Gospel of Luke chapter 14 that “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own soul, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”
The word of hate means here simply that in order to gain God as our refuge we have to renounce the whole world. You can not renounce the world partially, just as we can not serve two Lords, as Jesus said that “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can't serve both God and Mammon.”
We can not have the best of both worlds, because either we want Earth or we want Heaven. It can not be both, because the Earthly life is like a momentary cloud of smoke, flying away and disappearing fast in perpetual changing.
It is the complete opposite with God, as it is written in the letter of the Apostle James that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, nor turning shadow.”
Regarding the external world, Herakleitos, the Greek sage taught once that “it is not possible to step twice into the same river,” because the world is in a constant change. However, we have to acknowledge that not only the outside world is in a constant change, but our inside keeps changing in every second, just as Plutarch extended the meaning of Herakleitos, stating that it is not possible to come into contact twice with a mortal being in the same state. People’s heart change in every second, sinking and growing, facing entropy or developing understanding for the better.
Thus, Jesus was right in saying, that in order to gain God’s close embrace, we have to renounce not only the external universe, the full creation, as it is, but we have to renounce also our internal world, our soul, as well, for the sake of Heaven.
It is that simple, that comparing to God, the Universe is absolutely nothing. Comparing to God, my soul, and all my relations are nothing, only God is everything.
So, when there is a war, the most cruel human activity, with all its horror, bloodshed on the battlefields, killing innocents on the streets, erasing full cities from the land, enslaving entire populations, opening mass graves all overs, with all of that, it will, maybe not tomorrow, but ultimately pass. All of these are nothing, when we compare them to the love of God.
So, when there is a natural disaster, or chains of calamities, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcano eruptions, meteor explosions, hurricanes, floods, global warming, epidemics, etc., all of that, they will all pass. They are nothing, if we compare them to the love of God.
Even, when we see that innocent people suffer and die, it will pass, as it is mightily written by the prophet Isaiah that “The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; that the devout are taken away (to Heaven), and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.”
If we are preoccupied and occupied with this world, we loose the sight of God, and we loose the focus on the only ONE who never changes, and that is the Holy God in Heaven.
Jesus is very explicit about it, by saying that “don't be anxious, asking, 'What will we eat?', 'What will we drink?' or, 'With what will we be clothed?' for the Gentiles seek after all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first God's Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well.”
May we seek God in all what we do, and all what we do, may we do it only for the sake of the love of God, finding the refuge, our only refuge in the Lord, by the Holy Spirit,
AMEN.
