28th Week, Thursday, Oct 19
Romans 3:21-30 / Luke 11:47-54
Paul talks about salvation; Salvation is a gift from God.
Someone compared people in this world to people on a television screen. Television figures owe their existence to the television screen. Suppose those television figures rebelled. Suppose they said to the television screen, “We declare our independence from you; we no longer need you.” Such a situation would be ludicrous. It would be like an echo saying to a voice, “I declare my independence from you; I no longer need you." Paul reminds us that the same is true of us. Without God, we would be like an echo without a voice. Everything we are is pure “gift.”
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How do we show our appreciation to God for his many gifts to
us? “What greater grace could God have made to dawn on us than to make his Son
become a son of man so that the son of man might in turn become the Son of
God.” Augustine of Hippo
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The one question which Paul wants to answer in this whole letter is: What does God want us to be? or: How does a man get the right relationship with God? His answer is: by faith in Jesus Christ. What Jesus is doing is that by faith in Him, we become what God wants us to be Actually before God all, Jews and pagans, were sinners. As sinners they are guilty, and since they are guilty, they are condemned. To explain what Christ did to make us right before God, Paul uses three words:
Justification by faith: We identify ourselves with Jesus. We must be what He is and in Jesus, the Father was well pleased. God sees us no more as sinners. He sees in us Jesus who takes our place before the Father. In this way, we are made just: and justified.
Sacrifice: Christ gave His life that we may live. He sacrificed Himself for us. In the Old Testament, animals were offered to God to make good for sins. But now God takes no delight in the spilled blood of animals. He accepts the obedience of Christ as an offering for the sins of people.
Redemption: The Latin word "emere" means 'to buy'. Here with the prefix ‘re', - it means 'to buy back”. This is taken from the slave market, where a slave can buy his freedom by paying the price. Whatever a slave earned by his work or the master's generosity, he could take to the temple and deposit it there. When he had enough money to buy his freedom, his master would collect the money he had earned from the temple treasury. The same expression is used in the Old Testament in the context of God freeing His people from the servitude of Egypt. God does it out of love and in fidelity to the promises made by Him to their forefathers. There is no question of God paying any price to anyone to free His people. The same idea is expressed by the word Redemption in the New Testament. God, out of His bounteous mercy and love for mankind in servitude of sin, frees or liberates the sinful people through the blood of Christ shed on the cross in total obedience. The "Price" Christ "paid" was the price of love. We, sinners, were very "dear" (= "beloved" as well as "costly") to Him and to the Father,
This is how we become what God wants us to be. We must so accept Christ and join ourselves to him. He is our mediator, our sacrifice, our redeemer.
***
We cannot save ourselves by observing laws and relying on
our religious practices. We are saved simply by the goodness of God who
revealed himself to us in Christ.
***
To be reprimanded is not a pleasant experience. But when someone is reprimanded, it is because something wrong has been done, and the fault is pointed out so that some corrective action can be done.
In the gospel, Jesus reprimanded the Pharisees and the scribes and those who claim to know the Law of God. More than just a wrong-doing, it was something really terrible as lives are lost as prophets were killed and slaughtered and persecuted.
Blood was shed, and it was the prophets' blood, prophets who were sent by God. Being reprimanded like this should have an awakening effect, but on the contrary, the Pharisees and scribes began a furious attack on Jesus and tried to force answers from Him on innumerable questions, setting traps to catch Him out in something He might say. Before we shake our heads in disgust, we also need to know that when we are reprimanded, we too will get defensive and try to get off from it.
But from the 1st reading, let us remember that we have received the free gift of grace by being redeemed in Christ Jesus who was appointed by God to sacrifice His life so as to win reconciliation through faith.
So, whenever we are reprimanded, let us hear the voice of
God, and let us know that it is Jesus who wants to correct our faults and heal
our wounds of sin, so that the mercy and compassion of God can flow into our
hearts.
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Even our faith is a gift from God and this faith will set us free from sin and make us share in God’s goodness and love. This is difficult to understand for the scribes, the legalists of Christ’s day, and also for the legalists of our time. They cannot understand that everything is grace...
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Prayer
Lord God of the covenant, we thank you for the gift of faith
in your Son Jesus Christ, in the forgiveness and love which he brought us from
you. All you let us touch and feel is pure grace and a free gift. Give us
grateful hearts, Lord, that recognize your goodness in nature, in people around
us, and above all in your Son Jesus Christ, who lives with you and with us now
and forever. Amen
