Week 2, Day 7: An Unfathomable Mystery

To whom then will you liken God,
   or what likeness compare with him?
An idol? —A workman casts it,
   and a goldsmith overlays it with gold,
   and casts for it silver chains.
As a gift one chooses mulberry wood
   —wood that will not rot—
then seeks out a skilled artisan
   to set up an image that will not topple.

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
   Has it not been told you from the beginning?
   Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
   and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
   and spreads them like a tent to live in;
who brings princes to naught,
   and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
   scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows upon them, and they wither,
   and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

To whom then will you compare me,
   or who is my equal? says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high and see:
   Who created these?
He who brings out their host and numbers them,
   calling them all by name;
because he is great in strength,
   mighty in power,
   not one is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob,
   and speak, O Israel,
‘My way is hidden from the Lord,
   and my right is disregarded by my God’?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
   the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
   his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
   and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
   and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
   they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
   they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:18-31

"He appeared among mortal sinners as the immortal righteous one, mortal like humanity, righteous like God."
St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions X. xliii

Ecce homo is the Latin translation of the words spoken by Pilate when he handed Jesus over to the hostile crowd before the crucifixion (John 19:5). It translates as "here is the man." This simple statement has a great deal of meaning for us. Here is Christ, sent on the "humiliating path of reconciliation" that in turn sets the world free. All this week we have been thinking about the dramatic reversal of order the coming of Christ represents. I like the simplicity of the phrase "ecce homo" as a meditation for today; here is God, made flesh, to redeem the world. Why? Because God loves us. Not as ideal humans, because we aren't. God loves us as we are, ecce homo. 

God of peace, your will is that your love be known to all humans. Your forgiveness and your presence become a song in our heart, and even at night we can think of you and remember your name.
Brother Alois of Taize