Do you believe in
the salvation that is yours?
How many times
have we heard the dictum, The truth will
set you free? The Second Book of Chronicles tells of the
Israelites’ exile for generations under the rule of the Chaldeans. Having committed infidelity upon infidelity, having refused to listen to God, they
are carried captive to Babylon. And, in their suffering far from home, they sit weeping; they cannot sing: How can
we sing a song of the Lord in a foreign land?, the psalmist asks in Psalm 137. The Israelites’ exile will endure
until, by the grace and mercy of God, they are freed by Cyrus, King of Persia,
in the sixth century before Christ.
Ideally, their period of suffering will have been a time of
transformation, a time during which they realize that their identity lies in
God, whose mercy has no limits. Psalm
137 is not about lost faith; it is about maintaining faith in a memory when you
are removed from everything that reminds you of God. It is about holding to the truth when
everything around you seems to have fallen apart; it is to believe in
salvation.
To look upon Jesus
Christ crucified – lifted up – is to
believe in God’s power over death, to believe in the truth of the salvation
that is ours. In John’s Gospel, Jesus
talks to the Pharisee Nicodemus about the importance of focusing on the truth
in our lives, about the need to stand in the light. Nicodemus has come to Jesus in the night,
afraid to let others know he is attracted by the teachings of Christ. Like Nicodemus, we often cower in darkness,
afraid of the truth, of our truth. Yet we
have been created by God to thrive – but we can do so only in his love, his
light, his truth, when all that has been hidden is revealed, all that has been
in darkness comes toward the light. To believe in his love is to believe in
salvation.
Paul reminds the
Ephesians that God loves us even when we don’t love God in return: God is rich in mercy even when we are dead in our transgressions. Indeed, God brings us to life every day in
our brokenness. Our primary infidelity
is our inability to accept God’s love for us, and to open ourselves to the grace by which we have been saved. Eternal
life is not a duration but a state that endures beyond time and measure; it is
not what our humanity defines, but what God’s love defines in our
humanity. And to know his love is to
know salvation.
This post is based
on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordle.net
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