The teaching of our Christian Church is that God created us to be free to chose God before all else. We are not constrained by any force to follow God but must freely chose to accept his love and return it. This is what it means to be human. Today's first reading at mass seems to show that the first Christians did not believe this as they see the events of history as predestined by the Will of the Father. How much does God's total knowledge of everything conflict with the idea of me being able to choose God; to say yes or no to Christ's call, through the Holy Spirit, to follow him to his "Father's  mansion"?

Dear God we cannot understand your ways; let this "unknowing" lead me to the glory and mercy that is your "all in all".

By the time John's Gospel was written the Church had begun to question herself about how to follow the  Christ who still had not returned. The gentiles would have been baffled by the intensity of the mission to know one God. The first Jewish Christians were aware of a special relationship with the one true God and confused by Jesus' "Go out and teach all nations". Baptism or Eucharist; what was the focus of the first cultic rites? What is sure is that they developed from the rites of the Temple. Christianity is a Jewish sect and shares with Jews in God's promises; his Covenant.

Dear Lord, let me respond to your loving kindness and continue in life without fear as you are with me always.