The first reading today speaks about the unapproachable God. He was simply too great, too much, too powerful, too … everything.
As Moses would tell it, the tree was on fire, burning constantly, yet it was never consumed. And the scripture put it well when they told that Moses came down from Mount Sinai, and his face was glowing with a tremendous brightness somehow from within. The people told Moses not only can we not look at the face of God and live; we cannot even look at the face that looked at the face of God, and so you must cover your face with a towel for we are afraid to look at you.
Today’s excerpt from the letter to the Hebrews recalls and brings to the present that same awesomeness of God.
But then Jesus, in our Gospel, sends his disciples out to bring God’s wonderful good news — his Gospel’s good news to the world. Jesus didn’t wait for people to approach; rather, he sent his disciples to go into their very homes and bring to them the good news. Not only that, but the unapproachable God of the Old Testament would become the God who is love!
He doesn’t just love; he is love.
And elsewhere, we would be advised to remain in him, and he in us! The union between Father and Son and their remaining in one another is the invitation for us to do and be the same.
As for those to whom the disciples were to go, their only task was to listen and come to believe that a transforming mission was beginning!
