"I Am God, and There is No Other"

By Mitchell

I meant to write about this yesterday, before the computer gremlins rendered our internet connection null and void, but I think there's still some worth in it today.

In his homily yesterday, Fr. Pavlik concentrated on the first reading by Isaiah. This is a particularly effective passage, with its repeated rhetorical emphasis ("I am the Lord and there is no other") and the foreshadowing of Christ's "Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened" message (Matt. 11-28) when the Lord says, "Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other."

This was the focus of Fr. Pavlik's homily. The words serve at once as both reassurance and warning. For only through the Lord can we find true happiness, true peace, true life. Not from our jobs. Not from our friends or family. Not from sex or money or material goods. Those are but false gods, whispering sweet nothings in our ears, promising us the world. No, only Jesus can give us the peace and joy that we hunger for; and we will remain like children in the wilderness until we find Him.

"Turn to me and be saved," our Lord promises us, and it is a promise we can depend on. It was because of this that He created the world, it was because of this that He became man, it was because of this that He died on the Cross for our sins and rose from the dead on the third day. "Turn to me and be saved," He says, and in those words we feel the love and care He has for us. In those words is the source of our hope and our salvation. And why shouldn't we take comfort from them?

After all, He is God, and there is no other.