Let it rip

Sometimes we read Scripture through clouded lenses: what we read is softened by familiarity or filtered by our personal preferences.

Today's first reading (Hebrews 4:12-16) is itself very familiar, but it should remind us that Scripture consists not just of narratives of salvation history (which are there) nor does Scripture consist merely of comforting spiritual words (which are there also), but rather that the words of Scripture should be and are challenges to our spiritual and moral status quo.

The word of God
is living
and effective,
sharper than any two-edged sword,
penetrating
even between soul and spirit,
joints and marrow,
and able to discern
reflections and thoughts of the heart.

No creature is concealed from him,
but everything is naked and exposed
to the eyes of him
to whom we must render an account.

We need to look upon Scripture afresh, with the eyes of God's faithful people, wiping away the comfortable haze of "I've heard this before" or "I know what this means."

In our own minds and hearts we need to clean off the sword that is the word of God: wiping off the layers of familiarity and worldly intellectualism, letting it be wielded freely by Christ, letting it slice through the layers of compromise, sloth, and sin that we have let accumulate in our minds, in our hearts, and in the tangle of our lives.

We can fool ourselves for a time and console ourselves with the foggy image of Scripture to which we have grown accustomed.

We may try to flee from reality, but there is no escaping eternity.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, be merciful to me - a sinner.

No creature is concealed from him,
but everything is naked and exposed
to the eyes of him
to whom we must render an account.