Scripture:
Exodus 3:13-20
Matthew 11:28-30
Reflection:
“I love you. I care about you. I will be with you.” These are words all of us hunger to hear because they offer the heartfelt reassurance we need to get through life, and they are powerfully proclaimed in both of today’s readings.
In the first reading from Exodus, a clearly rattled Moses asks God to reveal his name and God answers: “I am who am…I AM sent me to you.” God’s response is not a philosophical riddle designed to baffle the Israelites, but a pledge of faithful love. In Hebrew, “I am who am” essentially means, “I will be with you, I will accompany you and never abandon you.” In ancient Israel, to know a person’s name was to know their innermost identity and spirit, it was to glimpse into their soul; thus, faithful love is who God is. Faithful love is not peripheral to God but is the very being of God.
Later in the reading, God says to Moses, “I am concerned about you and about the way you are being treated in Egypt.” It’s pretty astonishing, isn’t it? The God of the universe, the creator of all things, is not a distant, indifferent deity who is too far removed from our lives to care about us, but a God of faithful love who draws near to us, walks with us, and is so intimately close to us that the slightest details of our lives don’t go unnoticed by God. We matter to God. A God who says, “I am concerned about you,” is like the loving friend who offers us compassion, encouragement, and support whenever life is hard for us, whenever we feel overwhelmed, shaken, and uncertain, and especially whenever we are suffering.
Maybe that is why all of us love today’s gospel so much, this familiar but tremendously reassuring passage where Jesus says, “If you are troubled, if you are having a hard time, if you feel tired, burdened, and maybe even hopeless, come to me and I will help you, turn to me and let me refresh you.” Jesus is the care, concern, and compassion of God in the flesh. Jesus is God’s befriending love in person. Jesus is the incarnate confirmation of God’s everlasting faithful love. That, too, is something pretty astonishing that we should never forget.
Paul J. Wadell is Professor Emeritus of Theology & Religious Studies at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, and a member of the Passionist Family of Holy Cross Province.