Thursday, Third Week of Lent

In today’s gospel reading people interpret the life-giving work of Jesus in the most perverse way imaginable. Although it is clearly the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God – that is at work through Jesus, some people claimed that it was the evil spirit – the spirit of Satan – that was at work through Jesus. They were unmoved by Jesus’ healing ministry, failing to see that, as Jesus said, it was through the finger of God that he was releasing people from all that was oppressing them. I have often been struck by that image of ‘the finger of God’. It puts me in mind of that wonderful painting by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel in Rome of the creation of Adam. God stretches out his finger towards the finger of Adam in a powerful creative gesture. God who created us was powerfully at work recreating us through the ministry of Jesus, and, even more powerfully, through his death and resurrection. Whereas Satan’s power is always destructive, Jesus’ power, God’s power, is always creative. God, through his Son, now risen Lord, is always at work in a creative way in our lives and in our world. Our calling is to align ourselves in some way with the risen Lord’s creative and life-giving work. As Jesus says at the end of our gospel reading, we are to be with him, to gather with him. Together, in the strength of the risen Lord, we are to work against the destructive and life-taking forces that are always at work in our world. The creative, life-giving, finger of God that was at work through Jesus is to find expression in our own creative and life-giving fingers and hands, eyes, ears and mouth, heart, mind and imagination.