"Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated; Indeed, she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins." // Isaiah 40:2
I’ll never forget the first time I read those very popular words of Saint Therese of Lisieux describing a unique form of discipline she suggested we ask from God the Father. She used the example of two sons who had been naughty and needed to be corrected. The first son, afraid of his punishment, trembles in fear and hides his face from his father. The other son, equally guilty, leans in to the father’s great love for him and appeals to his father’s great love.
“(He) . . . throws himself into his father’s arms, saying that he is sorry for having caused him any trouble, that he loves him, and to prove it he will be good from now on, and if this child asked his father to punish him with a kiss, I do not believe that the heart of the happy father could resist the filial confidence of his child, whose sincerity and love he knows” (Fr. Thomas Dubay, Fire Within).
What a crazy, mind-blowing concept! Our punishment must still take place, but it is with a kiss.
The passage from today’s reading has a similarly counterintuitive consequence to our action. The Scripture says Jerusalem has received “double for all her sins”—except, just like always, God throws everything on its head. Punishment, giving us what we deserve, even the way that the Lord comes in power, as the Responsorial Psalm says—all of these things are counter to what the world tells us should happen.
None of us get what we deserve—we get double for it. And not double for what we deserve in our human, sinful nature. We get double for what God has restored for us. We are given so much more than we could ever imagine because God sent His Son to die—and rise!—for our sins.
We are new creations who have been given freedom and worth beyond anything our human hearts and minds can comprehend. How is He speaking tenderly to you today?
We are new creations. // Rachel BalducciClick to tweet
Rachel Balducci has a Masters degree from the Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia and teaches at Augusta University. She and her husband Paul have five sons and one daughter and are part of an intentional Christian community in Augusta, Georgia. Rachel is the author of several books and is the co-host of The Gist of CatholicTV. Find out more about her here.
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