Blogger Priest

The question is sometimes asked, “Could God have saved us in some other way?”

The consensus of Church teachers is YES, but any deep speculation is probably a waste of time.  God does what God does.  Our focus should be on the actual intervention:  God loved us so much that he sent his only Son into the world as one of us to redeem humanity.  The manner chosen by God shows both the terrible price of sin and the intimacy that God wants with the stewards of creation.  The incarnation changes everything.  The human face of Christ is revelatory of almighty God.  Ours is no longer simply the invisible God.  The body of a man, particularly on the Cross or imaged with the sacred heart, is now a powerful icon for the Lord.  God directly saves us.  Accordingly, now all men and women (who were made in the image of God) with the powers of intellect and will, can be refashioned by grace into the likeness of God in Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the new and perfect Adam.  He heals the rift caused by Original Sin and makes it possible for us to be truly holy and righteous in the eyes of God.

Everything was created by the Father through his Word.  It is in the Word (the Second Person of the Trinity) made man that there shall be a re-creation and the restoration of that which was lost.  There is a mysterious but definite logic to the divine plan.  This Word is also regarded as the Light of the World.  We were blinded by sin but now the dark clouds are parting and we can truly know and love God as we should.  The incarnation of Christ also gives us a perpetual exemplar.  God beckons that we become transformed into Christ.  We must proclaim him to the world and in our lives.  Like our Lord, we must also become prophetic signs of contradiction to the world that shuns the face of God.

The parables proclaim both a new type of kingdom and a new type of king.  The miracles of Christ largely focus on broken bodies and hungry bellies; however, in truth these were signs pointing to a deeper healing and feeding.  The sins of the flesh immediately touch the soul and Jesus came to save souls.  We are reminded that ours is a jealous God and that he would not share us with either the devil or the world.  His values challenge us to think of things in a way that is foreign to the earthly man.  We and our values must be changed so as to reflect a new kingdom breaking into the world.  This kingdom emerges first through the person of Jesus Christ and now through his mystical body, the Church. His sovereignty as divine and suffering servant is absolute.  No one else can make this claim— no angel of any rank and no man of any stature.  The God-Man beckons to us as no one else ever could.

The Word become flesh is the one Son of God but his redemptive work and sacrifice makes possible our spiritual adoption as sons and daughters of the heavenly Father.  This is a crucial point that should never be glossed over.  Just as the promise was preserved in the Old Testament with a family becoming a tribe and a tribe becoming a nation; the New Testament returns to the notion of a family.  It is within this context that Jesus tells his friends that he goes ahead of us to prepare a place (a room) in his house.  Jesus is born into the family of man so that we might be reborn into the family of God.  This is the appreciation of faith and baptism.  The subjects of the kingdom are all members of the royal family of God.  The gift of grace gives us an affinity or likeness to Christ just as members of a natural family often physically resemble each other. Indeed, the theme of family explodes when he shares his relationship with his apostles in teaching them the Lord’s Prayer.  His Father becomes “our” Father.

Filed under: Uncategorized |