C Cycle – 29^th Sunday in Ordinary Time 25

2 Tim. 3:14- 4:2

In the height of “rock and roll” music there was a song recorded by “The teddy bears” titled “To know him is to love him.”  Those words were engraved on the tombstone of the writer’s father.  The truth of those words is an undeniably truth. Love cannot grow until an individual allows us to know their thoughts, dreams, fears, and longings. How can we love God with our whole heart, mind, strength, and soul if we do not know Him.  We may think we know God because we have grown up in a faith that has shaped our knowledge of God.  Shaped our response to God and faithfully have acknowledged He is the way the truth and the life.  At every age, since childhood, we have been acknowledging the existence of God, of Jesus Christ and faithfully have believed what we are doing is helping us maintain a relationship with God.

But has it grown into a relationship that is intimate, uplifting, and continually has us growing in union with God?  Is it possible our faith formation was too centered on doing and not on becoming? Perhaps we should daily examine ourselves against the words of Paul to Timothy.  Paul knows his time is running short.  Paul has discovered the key to being an effective witness is to be rooted in the scriptures. Let us not forget that Paul was a Pharisee.  He was deeply rooted in the scriptures for his entire life.   Kthe sacred books of the Hebrew bible contained the law and the prophets.  Those books we now call the Old Testament.  In Paul’s time, every Jewish male studied the first five book of the Hebrew bible but only the brightest students were on to study the rest of the Hebrew scriptures.   Paul was more than bright, e went on to become a Pharisee, a man of the scriptures capable of teaching and interpreting the word of God.

But we know Paul did not see the connection between the prophets’ words identifying Jesus as the Messiah.  Something was obviously missing in Paul’s formation. It was intellectually centered and never stressed the need to “know God.” Otherwise, Paul would have easily made the connection of the prophecies and Jesus as the Messiah. If Paul could be blinded by his concept of God so cold we. Are we any better educated because we have the New Testament?  Do we love God with our whole heart, mind strength, and soul (Deu. 6:5) which Jesus tells us is the first and greatest commandment.  Do we ever think about how faithfully we ae following that great command of God?  If we are not, then we must consider what we must do to know the heart of God.  Again,

Paul discovered it and it is by immersing ourselves in the inspired words of scripture and allowing them to penetrate our hearts not our minds. Paul wrote these words to all of us:

The sacred Scriptures, which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God
and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that one who belongs to God may be competent,
equipped for every good work (2 Tim 3:16-17). Jesus said he came to show us the Father.  Every action, every word, every thing Jesus did is revealing to us the heart of God.  It reveals God’s love and how much He longs for us to love Him in return. But we will never know God’s love and its power to heal us until we know we are loved just as we are.  Loved by a God who knows us intimately and still longs to have us experience his embrace.  Longs for us to pay attention to how many times in the scriptures He shows us our sinfulness is not a barrier erected by Him. It is a barrier He is desperately telling us it does not exist. 

What does exist is His desire for our wholeness, our prosperity not our demise, our joy and excitement for our destiny not uncertainty and doubt. If we are confident about His love for us, then we can confidently begin to pray as we are encouraged to pray with boldens and confidence knowing God always answers prayer. God promised are dependent on us believing and standing firm in those beliefs.  Paul had every reason to doubt because he is in chains and the outcome is bleak, but he knows the heart of God is filled with mercy and forgiveness and empowering the weak to be strong. 

But if we accept the challenge to grow in righteousness by immersing ourselves in the scriptures, we have a future full of hope and filled with the wonder of God. We will grow in knowledge of God’s heart, and we begin to share our faith with others.  We like Paul will be changed by an encounter with God, transforming us into disciples.