“Life to the full” is Human and Divine
Sunday, December 22, 2024
Fourth Sunday of Advent
Mi 5:1-4a/Heb 10:5-10/Lk 1:39-45 (Lectionary #12)
Appreciating and Accepting Jesus as “Son of God” who empowers us to live on the level of God
How do I define myself? What does it mean to “practice my religion”? Do I think of myself as “being Christ” and my religion as letting Jesus Christ act with me, in me, and through me in everything I do?
From the least…
In Micah 5: 1-4, Bethlehem, the “little” or “least” clan of Judah, is proclaimed the greatest, the clan from which the Messiah will come: “who is to be ruler in Israel; whose origin is of old.” King David came from Bethlehem.
We see here a recurring principle in Scripture: the absence of the human is the revelation of the divine. The Messiah would not be just a human ruler accredited by his birthplace, powerful contacts and talents. He would be one chosen by God whose power would come from God, not from human endowments or resources. The Messiah shall “stand firm and shepherd his flock by the strength of the Lord, in the majestic name of the Lord, his God.”
The Responsorial Psalm applies this to us: “Lord, make us turn to you, let us see your face and we shall be saved” (Psalm 80). To understand salvation on the level that Jesus gives it, we have to “see his face” as God. We know Jesus is human because he is the son of Mary, but also divine because he is the Son of God. The absence of a human father is the revelation that his Father is God. The absence of the human is the revelation of the divine.
To see the true face of the Savior as God is to understand that the salvation he brings is not just human goodness or some acceptable level of good human behavior. To accept salvation from the Son of God is to accept life on the level of God. “Grace,” is defined as “the favor of sharing in the divine life of God.”
To be “saved” is to be divine, because it is to be Christ. Saint Augustine speaking to the baptized, said, “We have become not only Christians, but Christ. Marvel and rejoice: we have become Christ!” (Quoted by John Paul II in The Splendor of Truth, no. 21). If we have “become Christ” by Baptism, then we are obviously called and committed to act as Christ — to let Jesus the Christ (“Christ” in Greek is “Anointed,” in Hebrew “Messiah”) act with us, in us, and through us in everything we do.
At Baptism we “became Christ,” and we were solemnly anointed with “chrism” as the minister said, “As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet, and King, so live always as a member of his body.”
Our “job description” as Christians is to continue the triple mission of Jesus, having been anointed and consecrated as prophets, priests, and stewards of his kingship in Baptism.
If we let Jesus act with us, in us, and through us always and everywhere, then we will have a healing, enhancing, even divinizing effect on everything we are involved in. Jesus, by acting with us, in us, and through us in all we do, will “save” our family and social life, business, and politics from destructiveness and distortion, from mediocrity and meaninglessness.
To let Jesus do this through us, we have to aim consciously at doing it ourselves. Not alone, but by trying consciously to act in union with him at all times. To be “saved” is to become a savior; or rather, to become the Savior, Jesus Christ, and let him continue his saving presence and mission in us, in our bodies, which we “presented” to become his own at Baptism (Romans 12:1-2).
By Baptism we “became Christ.” As Christ (the “Anointed,” the “Messiah”) we have become the Messiah! Each of us can and must say, “I am the Messiah!” — understanding this, of course, as meaning that the only way Jesus can continue to act as Messiah on earth today is through the members of his body who are in the world. Acting with us, in us, and through us, Jesus continues to save the world as Messiah and Son of God. We who by Baptism became filii in Filio — sons and daughters of God the Father in Christ, who is the “only Son of the Father” — are also “saviors in the Savior” and “messiahs in the Messiah.” This is what it means to be “saved.”
The blessing of belief
In Luke 1: 39-45, when Mary, pregnant with Jesus, appeared on Elizabeth’s doorstep, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb (John, who would become the Baptizer) “stirred for joy.” And Elizabeth recognized, however vaguely, that she was in the presence of God: “Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” We should have a similar effect on people.
Whenever we appear on the threshold of anyone’s consciousness, something inside of that person should leap for joy at the presence of the divine in us. At least it should happen in those who are receptive.
They may not be explicitly aware that what they are responding to is divine (any more than Elizabeth knew at the time that Jesus was God). But if they are experiencing — or sensing — in us that “love, joy, peace…” etc. that are the “fruit of the Spirit,” they are in fact experiencing the saving presence of God in us (see Galatians 5:22-23).
But for them to be aware of what we are, we have to be aware of it. Elizabeth said to Mary, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled!” If we can believe the mystery of our identity, the mystery of our identification with Jesus by grace, the mystery of our Baptism, then “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). No matter what is going wrong in our lives, no matter how much we are suffering from others or from our own faults and failures, we will know that we have “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” — the favor of sharing in the divine life of God — that we are blessed and embraced by the “love of God,” and that we are intimately bonded in mind and will and heart with other people in the “communion of the Holy Spirit.” This is an inalienable source of joy and peace. Jesus promised that even if we “have pain now,” nevertheless “Your hearts will rejoice with a joy no one can take from you”(2Corinthians 13:14; John 16:22). “Lord… let us see your face” —in ourselves and others — “and we shall be saved” from losing either peace or joy.
We know, in the light of Christ’s death and resurrection, that Jesus was the “only Son of the Father” who came to make us all sons and daughters of God by sharing his own divine life with us. He did not come just to repair what sin had damaged and restore us to normal, healthy, human life. He came to call and empower us to live on the level of God. To understand “salvation” in any other way is to misunderstand Jesus as Savior.
Mystery Manifested
Hebrews 10: 5-10 makes the shocking statement that God neither “desired nor delighted in” the religious observances he himself had prescribed for his People in the Law of Moses. To understand this, preface it with “Relatively speaking….”
Compared to the divine level of life and worship God made possible for us “through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ,” and our incorporation into that body through Baptism, acts of merely human virtue and worship are not enough for God. God wants us to live, pray, speak and act always as the divine Son of God, whose body we have become.
Insight: How would I define myself now? How would I define my religion?
Initiative: Be Christ in every action. Say before everything you do, “Lord, do this with me, do this in me, do this through me.” Be the Messiah!
Comments