Our Salvation is in Jesus Christ

Fourth Sunday of Easter - Year B

Albrecht Durer - Adoration of the Trinity

Since the fall, it was always in God’s plan for man to be reunited to Him. Sin was not part of God’s plan for man. God sent Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, the Second Person of the Trinity to be the great bridge between the immense divide that separated God from us. Christ paid a debt He didn’t owe because we owed a debt we could never pay. Our sins incurred an infinite debt of justice against the eternal God. We, as finite creatures, could never repay such a debt, so God becomes man to pay that debt for us. This is why Peter preaches that “there is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved,” (Acts 4:12). Christ died once for all and opened the possibility for us to enter into eternal life with God.

This is the greatest cause for celebration and during the Easter season every year, the Church rejoices for 50 days, echoing the Psalmist in proclaiming, “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, his mercy endures forever,” (Psalm 118:1). In an earlier post, I mentioned that the word for “mercy” here is chesed, a word that is difficult to translate. The closest we can come to translating is covenantal loving-kindness. It’s the kind of love that is kind and merciful, but also abidingly faithful and committed. That’s the difference between a mere relationship and a covenant bond. We are in covenant with God through Jesus Christ. That means He is faithful to us regardless of how we fall short of our covenant responsibilities. This isn’t an emotional relationship, this is an eternally binding covenantal love.

In this covenantal love, God the Father saves us from sin and calls us to the new and eternal life in Him. The Catechism informes us that “justification (salvation) establishes cooperation between God's grace and man's freedom. On man's part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion…” (CCC 1993). God loves us infinitely, but He will never force His love upon us. As he offers us His divine life as a gift, He also honors our freedom to accept or reject that love. Love doesn’t mean validating all our choices and actions, but it does mean never coercing the beloved into accepting love.

The Love of our Father is historically unique. We are sometimes too close to it to realize the magnificence of this gift. The God of the universe calls you and me CHILDREN! And this isn’t just a kinship in a created sense. God has opened the door, through Christ, for Covenantal adoption! Unlike the legal processes we undergo for adoption today, in Scirpture, Covenantal adoption meant that the child now has ALL of the birthrights that a biological child would. There is ostensibly no distinction. In an analogous sense, this means that all the rigths and privileges of Christ as the Son of God are now ours! “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are!” (1 John 3:1)

If we call Christ our Good Shepherd, then we must, in daily prayer, constantly seek to know Him and be known by Him. (cf. John 10:14). Only when we truly know our Lord and Savior, only when we have experienced His Love constantly poured into our hearts, will we be set afire by the Holy Spirit to want to draw all mankind into His embrace. Christ tells us, “I have other sheep^* that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd,” (John 10:16). He wills that all come into His eternal, abiding, covenantal embrace.

You and I have an obligation, my brothers and sisters. God the Father, through the Son, in the Person of the Holy Spirit has poured His Love into our hearts, compelling us to convert every aspect of our life for Him, and to then tirelessly seek out all others, to bring them into the loving embrace of our Covenant family. This is our call and heritage. What is our response to His call?

Deus Benedicat