“As the rain and snow come down from the heavens and do not return without watering the earth and making it yield…so the word does not return to me empty, without carrying out my will and succeeding in what it was sent to do” (Isaiah 55:10–11).
Jesus made the essential requirement for the forgiveness of sin rather clear and definitive here: As you do it, it will be done to you. If you do not do it, it cannot be done to you. We are merely and forever inside of the divine flow, just like Isaiah’s “rain and snow.” Forgiveness is constant from God’s side, which should become a calm, joyous certainty on our side. Mercy received will be mercy passed on, and “will not return to me empty, until it has succeeded in what it was sent to do.”
—from the book Wondrous Encounters: Scriptures for Lent
by Richard Rohr, OFM, page 30
