"On this mountain, the Lord will prepare for all peoples a banquet of rich foods. On this mountain, the Lord will remove the mourning veil covering all the peoples, and destroy death forever."
Isaiah
What can satisfy the deepest hunger and longing of the human heart? To satisfy our deepest hunger and longing, we often look for it in an accumulation of more and more things; but it cannot be found there. As Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well: "If you drink this water (when referring to the water from the well) you will become thirsty again; but the water that I give will become a fountain within, welling up to eternal life."
Isaiah provides deep imagery and description of what it is like on God's Mountain. This is not an expression of some exterior reality, but an inner reality of the heart as one draws closer to God, for in God, there is abundance. "The Lord God will wipe away the tears from every cheek. God will take away the people's shame."
In the Lord's prayer we say: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." I often wonder if we understand what this means? Could it mean that we should try to create in our own lives and the lives of others what already exists on God's Holy Mountain?
I heard some alarming statistics the other day on the news. Apparently in our Western North American culture, we waste or throw out one-third of the food we produce. In fact, the perception in our economy as to what we need by way of food production is based on what we both use and waste. The statistician stated that if all of the people of the world had the same perception of food production needs based on that in North America, we would need four planets the size of earth to produce it. There is an apparent disparity that exists that creates a gross imbalance in the perceived need and use of the world's produce.
On God's Holy Mountain, there is a transformation of heart that enables us to see things differently than we do with our ordinary eyes. We are able to see that abundance and fullness of life does not come from the accumulation of more and more things. It comes about through the sharing of God's abundance with those who have less. God's Kingdom works somewhat in reverse to how the world works. That's why we see, in Christ, someone who is often a contradiction to what we normally experience in society. What is important to Christ is often unimportant to society. What is often important to society is unimportant to Christ.
In the Gospel reading from Luke in the multiplication of the loaves, Jesus shares the little that He has (in this case seven loaves and a few fishes) to reveal that it is in giving that hearts are transformed, and God's abundance is manifested. That which is left over is much greater than the little we began with. When hearts are transformed, we see that God's abundance is manifest through the sharing of what we have so that everyone has enough. Then God's Kingdom will be evident to us on earth as it is in heaven.
What can satisfy the deepest hunger and longing of the human heart? We must not look for it in the accumulation or more and more exterior things. We must look for it in transformed hearts that see the importance of sharing what we have. We must look for it in the life giving waters given to us through our faith in Christ - transforming waters that well up within to provide eternal life.
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