Salvation

Salvation

When I think of Jesus, many different images come to mind. Jesus the teacher - he taught us to love one another as we love ourselves. Jesus the redeemer - he came to redeem mankind.. Jesus the savior - "The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world". As you read through this, please to think in the back of your mind "Who is Jesus to me".

From the book of Genesis, we know that God created Adam and Eve in his likeness and image. Our pastor, Father Ed, uses the phrase "He loved them into existence". The first man and woman lived in the Garden of Eden and walked and talked with God. It was paradise.

One of the greatest gifts that God gave them (and gives us) is free will. They were free to follow God's will or their own. In other words, they could chose who to love more, God or themselves.

Unfortunately for us, they chose to follow their own will and we are forever stained by Original Sin. When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, at that moment; sin, evil, sickness and death came into to world. We are all created by God loving us into existence, but we all have the tendency to sin - to choose our will over God's will - to remove God from our lives.

We can look at the world as two kingdoms - the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. The kingdom of darkness is filled with evil and sin. It exists when God is absent. The kingdom of light is filled with joy and goodness because it is where Jesus is found.


First we can look at personal darkness. To name a few: hatred & anger, arrogance - pride - vanity, gluttony & selfishness, intolerance & prejudice, lust & jealousy. Sometimes we mention these in the confessional booth - other times we convince ourselves they are not sins at all!

But sin leads to more sin. There are also societal sins. For example: Greed, pornography, materialism (things are more important than God), relativism (there are no universal sins), alternate life styles, and abortion. Our world is full of these sins and more.

But all is not lost! From the book of Revelation we know who wins in the End. We have Jesus on our side. He created this church to help guide us through the darkness; he gave us the sacraments to provide us grace. We have faith in God, which allows us to look beyond the secular world and know that God is here for us. We have hope that God provides us the strength to not despair.

We know that only through Jesus can we find our salvation. He died for our sins, to allow us to be with God. He could have chosen to not die, but because he loves us so much - he allowed himself to die for our sins. He showed us how much he loves us by accepting the Father's will by dying on the cross and defeating death. He is divine, yet he died for us.

Jesus is not just divine, he is also human. If he was only divine his death and resurrection would not mean anything to us. We would conclude that his divinity allowed this to happen and since we aren't divine it cannot happen for us. If he was only human, his death and resurrection would appear as a unique event. We would think it was only meant for those selected by God, and there is no hope for the rest of us.

But by his being both divine and human, we know that his death shows us how much Jesus loves us, and his resurrection shows that there is hope for man to live with God in eternity.

I may not have this entirely correct. One of the things I love about being Catholic is the mystery of things. I may not have the theology correct, but I know if I keep trying to understand it, the closer I get to Jesus - and with him all things are possible.


I want to end with this portion of the talk with a reading from Phillipians, chapter 2, verse 5-11. This is St. Paul speaking about the joy that Jesus brings. To set this up, we need to realize St. Paul was in prison when he wrote this. He was in chains, in a dark, cold, wet cell:

Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.