You have clothed yourselves with Christ...
What does it mean to be saved?
What does it mean to be saved?
In this Sunday’s readings, the prophet Zechariah foretells
God’s intervention on behalf of the people of Israel. After years of exile, he says, God will pour out on the house of David and on
the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and petition; it will be a fountain to purify them from all that
stands between themselves and God.
Relationship will be restored; access to God will be reestablished
through God’s saving action in their lives.
The psalmist understands the need for this fountain of God’s grace: for
you… my soul thirsts, he cries (Psalm 63). And since
prayer itself is a means of access and connection with God, the psalmist’s
petition in the temple is also a promise to glorify
and bless God, knowing that he is
intimately upheld by God’s right hand. Revived by God’s kindness and help, the
psalmist has been delivered, restored to right relationship, enjoying the
intimacy of closeness with God once again.
Jesus’ coming satisfies this desire for God’s saving
presence in ways the people of Israel could not begin to imagine. In Luke's Gospel, Jesus, the
Christ of God, has a hard message for his disciples: If
anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross
daily and follow me. How do we do
this? By allowing Christ to dwell in us.
By entering into full relationship with
him. By answering the question Who do you say that I am? with an effort
to understand what it means if our lives are joined to him and his to ours, fully. You
have clothed yourself in Christ, Paul tells the Galatians. If we are clothed
in Christ, if Jesus truly dwells in us, then that relationship is
transformative of our very essence.
Because then, we may become
conduits of God’s saving power, points of access, the fountain of grace that
the world so desperately needs…
This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
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