• Reading: Luke 10:1-24

How blessed we are! Many kings and prophets longed to see the fulfillment of God's promise to send a Savior. We live having heard the witness of those who heard and saw the long promised Messiah speak and teach. As they teach, we hear of His miracles and the wonders He performed and we learn that Jesus was sent into the world to reveal to us the love and mercy which our God has for us.

Whoever receives Jesus - that is, whoever relies only upon Him for salvation, receives the mercy and grace of God the Father. But as St. Paul said, "How shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?"

Jesus sending out the seventy-two reveals the desire of God that all should hear and come to a knowledge of the truth. "Pray to the Lord of the harvest," says Jesus, "to send out workers into his harvest field." Through the witness of the 72, the glory of God was proclaimed. Sure, they performed miracles and the demons submitted to them, but this was not what is important. Jesus tells us what is important is that our names are written in heaven. They are written there because, the Holy Spirit working through the testimony of those whom God sent has called us to faith in Christ.

Their testimony to God's work for us in Jesus Christ is a sure foundation upon which the household of God is built. As we know and trust in the work of Him who was sent by the Father to redeem us, we have cause to rejoice because God has revealed His grace and mercy to us. Jesus came so that "through Him we [would] have access in one Spirit to the Father." We can, therefore, rejoice with Jesus because we have been made members of the household of God, "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone." (Ephesians 2:18-19).