Father Henri Nouwen Society's Daily Meditation for Saturday March 1, 2014 "God's powerlessness"

Father Henri Nouwen Society's Daily Meditation for Saturday March 1, 2014 "God's powerlessness"
Jesus is God-with-us, Emmanuel.  The great mystery of God becoming human is God's desire to be loved by us.  By becoming a vulnerable child, completely dependent on human care, God wants to take away all distance between the human and the divine.  
Who can be afraid of a little child that needs to be fed, to be cared for, to be taught, to be guided?  We usually talk about God as the all-powerful, almighty God on whom we depend completely.  But God wanted to become the all-powerless, all-vulnerable God who completely depends on us.  How can we be afraid of a God who wants to be "God-with-us" and needs us to become "Us-with-God"?--Father Henri J. M. Nouwen
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Father Henri Nouwen Society's Daily Meditation for Sunday, March 2, 2014 "God's Covenant"
God made a covenant with us.  The word covenant means "coming together."  God wants to come together with us.  In many of the stories in the Hebrew Bible, we see that God appears as a God who defends us against our enemies, protects us against dangers, and guides us to freedom.  God is God-for-us.  When Jesus comes a new dimension of the covenant is revealed.  In Jesus, God is born, grows to maturity, lives, suffers, and dies as we do.  God is God-with-us.  Finally, when Jesus leaves he promises the Holy Spirit.  In the Holy Spirit, God reveals the full depth of the covenant.  God wants to be as close to us as our breath.  God wants to breathe in us, so that all we say, think and do is completely inspired by God.  God is God-within-us.   Thus God's covenant reveals to us to how much God loves us.--Father Henri J. M. Nouwen
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