Notes for  14 March 2019

It sounds a little boring, it doesn’t inspire, isn’t it? It would have been better: "we shall look for what serves our self-affirmation and to the mutual pleasure ". The word "peace" reminds us of old slogans of fight for peace, and the word "edify" - the most disgusting professors at school.

Why is it so? How come that these magnificent words were so pervert in our perception? Indeed, "peace" is not just an absence of war and even nor the absence of hostilities. In the biblical language, "shalom" is a state of the Creation in the seventh day, when God, having achieved everything, rests, when everything is "very good". Such are " the new heaven and the new earth", of which are said to prophets and in the book of Revelation, the new world, which can be compared with the initial meaning of the Greek word "cosmos", word from which derives "cosmetic", because the Cosmos is the Universe filled with beauties. “Peace" - genuine integrity, harmony, order and beauty. And it is exactly what the apostle Paul invites us to look for, such a peace in us and in our relationships one with another, which is created only by God.

And the word "edify" describes not a notation, but the "cultuvation", the increase of good, what is well. There is also a wonderful thing here related to God. God is Good Himself, and He is infinite, that is why the common conservation laws as "if something was added somewhere, then so much decreased somewhere else" do not work in all that is bound to the notion of good. When we share something nice with another (love, consolation, knowledge etc.), it arrives to the another then, and it doesn’t not only decrease in us, but in an unexpected way increases rather, takes place a mutual edification, a mutual growth in good, a joint movement towards the true Good, towards God.

Thus eternity touches earthly history... God and the human person meet. This is undoubtedly a new stage of revelation, yet this revelation does not consist in the prophet learning some secret knowledge about God or the world. God reveals His name, signifying that His only name is He Himself: “I am I,” He tells Moses in the flame of the bush. This revelation is a meeting in action. The God who reveals Himself to Moses immediately gives him two things, a promise and a task, corresponding to the two sides of this meeting. God promises that He will act through Moses and save His people from slavery; Moses, in turn, must carry out His commission. The mystery of God's ineffability is revealed in the mystery of a mortal human being's cooperation with the eternal God. How else can one know the Unknowable except by living His life, desiring His will, and doing His work?

The catastrophe that engulfed Egypt is described very schematically by the biblical author, and the conclusions seem self-evident: a wicked king—an unbelieving people—punishment; and conversely, a prophet—a faithful people—prosperity (none of the Egyptian "plagues" touches the Israelites). At first glance, such theology seems rather primitive. Do believers not suffer? In worldwide catastrophes, do people of different convictions, the "good" and the "bad," not perish alike? And how can the good be distinguished from the bad; is God not "kind to the ungrateful and the wicked"? Behind this ancient and particular language ("execute our enemies, pardon our own") stands another, more universal truth: the evil occurring in the world is a consequence of human evil, even if not directly; death enters the world because of distrust in God, and therefore faith is the path of life, even though we cannot always see it with our own eyes.

An attempt to express the Lord’s greatness through images of a triumphal procession could not, of course, fully portray the One who surpasses all. Yet the feelings of people who had discovered even a small measure of His greatness become understandable to us through the customary ways in which they expressed them. The psalm allows us to recall the solemn transfer of the Ark of the Covenant into the House of God in Jerusalem, but this particular event can also be viewed as an image of the faithful following the Lord in procession; thus all the words of trust given here are entirely natural.

Then, unexpectedly, we encounter the words that the Lord received gifts not for Himself but for humanity, and moreover so that even those who rebelled might dwell with the Lord God. The psalmist was granted the insight that the Lord desires to be reconciled with sinful humanity that has fallen away from Him.

Several centuries later, He will go to the Cross for those who oppose Him.