The Lord hears the cry of the poor (OF/Psalm 34)
The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds;
it does not rest till it reaches its goal,
nor will it withdraw till the Most High responds (OF/Sirach 35:21)
Who are the poor? Who are the lowly?
The pharisee approaches God without considering who he is in relationship to God. He acts as if not only does he belong in the temple, but that God must answer his prayers because of who he is. The tax collector, who was considered an idolatrous traitor by the rest of the Jews, recognized the truth: he is a sinner, and needs God’s mercy. His recognized his poverty of spirit. (OF/Luke 18:9-14)
We are much more impoverished than we’d like to admit. And it has nothing to do with money. And until we recognize that, we’re in trouble. How are we impoverished? Our entire race has been enslaved by Sin, and the wage of this sin is that we will all meet Death. God created humanity good, but through the failure of our first parents and of every human being after them, humanity has dragged itself lower and lower. The evil one and his minions cannot make war against God, because he is God. So they take what they can, and cause havoc with us. The tempt us and deceive us and lie to us, and we fall for it all the time. And we can’t help ourselves. It doesn’t matter how powerful or wealthy we are. It doesn’t even matter how holy we consider ourselves to be. We cannot break out of the hellish slavery to Sin by ourselves. And we are impotent in the face of Death.
Until we recognize our powerlessness and our poverty, until when we do realize that we are the poor ones crying out, we are in trouble.
But when we do recognize our poverty, well… The Lord hears the cry of the poor. (Ps 34) And the prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds; it does not rest till it reaches its goal, nor will it withdraw till the Most High responds. (Sirach 35:21)
How has God answered this prayer of his poor ones?
(EF Christ the King, Col 1:12-20)
He has rescued us from the power of darkness, and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, in Whom we have our redemption through His blood, the remission of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For in Him were created all things in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominations, or Principalities, or Powers. All things have been created through and unto Him, and He is before all
God’s response to the prayer of his poor children was simple: he became one of us to deceive the evil one and his minions so that they would try to take him. He clothed himself in humanity and hid himself in suffering. And when we cast all our sins on him and Death tried to take him, God walked into Hades, kicked the Gates of Hell in–for they cannot prevail–, conquered Satan and his rebels who are weak and impotent in front of Him who is our almighty God, and brought his children home.
This is the good news of the Gospel. We are poor. We are weak. We cannot help ourselves. But God, who created this mind-bogglingly massive universe with trillions of stars, created us and loves us and wants us to come home. And the moment we turn to him, he will destroy anything that lays between him and us. God loves his children with a compassion and mercy that is unfathomable, and nobody and nothing better stand in the way of him giving us that love.
(EF John 18:37-38)
So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
I have an answer for Pilate.
This is truth: God the Father wants his children back. Jesus, the Son of God the Father, our Christ and our King reigns forever. He has destroyed hell and mowed down our enemies. Nothing will stand in his way: He has come to bring us home.