What if you, your child or someone closest to you, made bad choices and landed up in prison. No second chances whatsoever and sooner or later would be facing the death penalty! Yes only the penalty accepted for so heinous a crime.
Then someone came bringing hope that he will fight for you to the death if need be, to secure your freedom. ( Pause and reflect on this for a moment)
Sin is what imprisons us all! It is merciless in its pursuit to see to our destruction. Yet one man came to save us all from the clutches of sin and death, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Not only to set us free but to offer us new life in Him. Such is His mercy and love that He gave us a 2nd chance and for most of us many, many chances! How then can we not offer the same mercy and love to those who have offended and hurt us? Have we in our own sins not offended and hurt our Lord? If we can change, so can our enemies by the grace of the Lord our God. For He indeed came for us sinners and not the virtuous, for those who are truly virtuous are already with Him.
Those are who are merciful, faithful and obedient unto to the Lord our God, will see His loving hand in everything and every aspect of our lives. Father Abraham was promised land and countless descendants and so we see how his lineage was kept pure subtly through the hand of God by the introduction of Rebekah to Issac his son. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. Now and forever. Amen
First reading
Genesis 23:1-4,19,24:1-8,62-67
‘Choose a wife for my son Isaac’
The length of Sarah’s life was a hundred and twenty-seven years. She died at Kiriath-arba, or Hebron, in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went in to mourn and grieve for her.
Then leaving his dead, Abraham spoke to the sons of Heth: ‘I am a stranger and a settler among you,’ he said. ‘Let me own a burial-plot among you, so that I may take my dead wife and bury her.’
After this, Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave of the field of Machpelah opposite Mamre, in the country of Canaan.
By now Abraham was an old man well on in years, and the Lord had blessed him in every way. Abraham said to the eldest servant of his household, the steward of all his property, ‘Place your hand under my thigh, I would have you swear by the Lord, God of heaven and God of earth, that you will not choose a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I live. Instead, go to my own land and my own kinsfolk to choose a wife for my son Isaac.’ The servant asked him, ‘What if the woman does not want to come with me to this country? Must I take your son back to the country from which you came?’ Abraham answered, ‘On no account take my son back there. The Lord, God of heaven and God of earth, took me from my father’s home, and from the land of my kinsfolk, and he swore to me that he would give this country to my descendants. He will now send his angel ahead of you, so that you may choose a wife for my son there. And if the woman does not want to come with you, you will be free from this oath of mine. Only do not take my son back there.’
Isaac, who lived in the Negeb, had meanwhile come into the wilderness of the well of Lahai Roi. Now Isaac went walking in the fields as evening fell, and looking up saw camels approaching. And Rebekah looked up and saw Isaac. She jumped down from her camel, and asked the servant, ‘Who is that man walking through the fields to meet us?’ The servant replied, ‘That is my master’; then she took her veil and hid her face. The servant told Isaac the whole story, and Isaac led Rebekah into his tent and made her his wife; and he loved her. And so Isaac was consoled for the loss of his mother.
Gospel
Matthew 9:9-13
It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick
As Jesus was walking on, he saw a man named Matthew sitting by the customs house, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.
While he was at dinner in the house it happened that a number of tax collectors and sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners? When he heard this he replied, ‘It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the words: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice. And indeed I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners.’
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