Gospel, John 3:14-21 During the Exodus the people complained about the food. So God led them into an area infested with a type of venomous snake whose bite caused a severe burning sensation and even death for some. The people realized there were worse things than bad food and asked God’s forgiveness for their complaining. God told Moses to “make a seraph and mount it on a pole. If anyone who has been bitten looks at it, he will recover (Numbers 21:8).” The instrument of suffering was converted into the sign of healing grace.
The image of Jesus suffering on the cross is converted into the ultimate sign of healing grace. The cross was the instrument but it is looking to Jesus that brings us the healing saving grace of God. That is why we Catholics generally prefer the crucifix with the image of Jesus present.
“Whoever believes in him will not be condemned.” Is there a difference between “believing” and “putting faith” in God? Most people think of “believing” as an act of intellectual acceptance. By contrast, “putting one’s faith” in God requires a deeper commitment of the whole person. Consider the use of the word “faith” in such texts as Paul writing about the “obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5) or “the just person shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17) or James writing that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:26). Here’s the catch…the English words “believe” and “have faith” are two different translations of the exact same word in Greek. In other words, Jesus is not saying in John 3 that all you need to give God is an intellectual assent but something much deeper. A Jewish commentary on the Hebrew scriptures which I consulted says “in the Hebrew bible ‘faith’ does not mean belief in a doctrine or a creed. It refers to trust and loyalty expressed through commitment and obedience.” I believe that would have been the understanding in John’s Jewish mind as he wrote the Greek text of his gospel: “Whoever obediently entrusts their life to God will not be condemned.”
“This is the verdict.” The Greek word “krisis” means “judgment” or “verdict”, as here translated, but I like the extra meaning just leaving leaving it as “crisis”. A verdict is given when the challenge is over, but a crisis is an ongoing challenge in focus like the energy crisis and the financial crisis. Here is the faith crisis: the light of God is here but people are preferring the darkness of their ungodly lifestyles and choices. The way out of the crisis is to recognize the crisis, make a decision for the light of God, and then live by that decision.
Reading 1, 2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23
The Greek title for the two books of Chronicles is “paraleipomena”, meaning “things omitted” with reference to the histories recounted in the books of Samuel and Kings. The underlying history is the same, but the chronicler brings a specific focus which affects both his selection of material and his retrospect evaluation of his nation’s history. The temple of Jerusalem and the worship at the temple were of utmost importance to the chronicler. On a fuller reading of the books, one might note that all of Solomon’s serious defects and sins highlighted in Kings are completed glossed over. Solomon was the builder of the temple, for which the chronicler affords him a status of greatness surpassed only by his father David. Judah’s kings (no history is given regarding the kings of Judah’s sister nation of Israel) are all judged by their attitudes toward the temple and its worship. The books are thought to have been written toward the end of the 5th century before the birth of Christ. A political realist, the chronicler realizes his little nation would never be a world power but it could still be great as a people of God, focused on the temple and the temple worship of God.The books of Chronicles end with this passage which recounts the destruction of the Jerusalem’s first temple and the hope for purity of temple worship in the new one, financially backed by the Persian government and endorsed by the decree of Cyrus. With a few brief periods of reform, worship of foreign gods had continued in the hills around Jerusalem and in other localities in the country throughout Jewish history until the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC. The land would “retrieve its lost Sabbaths with 70 years of exile in Babylonia before Cyrus of Persia conquered the Babylonian empire. He followed the rather enlightened policy of supporting small independent nations on his fringes and giving them reason to be his allies rather than dominating them under a harsh hand as had the Babylonians.
Reading II, Ephesians 2:4-10 Note how many times the word “grace” appears in this reading. There is a tendency to think of grace as some kind of spiritual currency. This attitude is, perhaps, more prevalent among Catholics as our tradition has used phrases like “storing up grace” as though putting money in a bank account. We have analyzed and dissected grace as actual grace, supernatural grace, sanctifying grace, sacramental grace, etc. That is okay for study as when we dissected frogs in biology lab in high school. The one thing we could see in the dissection, however, was life…the one thing that gave what we studied meaning as far as the frog was concerned. So it is with grace. The one thing that gives it meaning is a living relationship with God. The word “grace” from the Latin “gratia” shares a common root with the words “gratis” (free) and “gratuity” (free gift or tip). So, grace is a sharing in the life and blessings of God…a freely given gift…a statement of the strength of one’s relationship with God. May we always live in God’s good graces.
The last sentence of this reading indicates, as the note about the meaning of faith in the gospel reading, that our response to God is to be more than intellectual acknowledgement of God’s greatness. It requires living our faith by putting the grace of God into action, carrying out the good works that God has prepared in advance” for us to accomplish…God’s grace working in and through us.
Basically grace is a spontaneous gift from God to man that takes the form of divine favour, love and clemency. It is considered an attribute of God that is most manifest in the salvation of sinners
Posted by: writing company | October 20, 2011 at 06:39 AM
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Posted by: framkalla gratis | November 27, 2011 at 04:27 PM