Everybody?

Monday, July 31, 2017

Thought of the day: Then English priest James Allison writes that “ . . . Jesus gave himself up for us before we even knew we needed forgiving . . .” (On Being Liked, p. 46)

There are so many people who live their lives without any sense of connection to God, or to religion, and it does us good to remember that Jesus is actively giving Himself up for them, and that their ignorance, or resistance, or hesitation, or sheer laziness doesn’t figure into the equation.

In the Psalms it says that “The fool has said in his heart: there is no God.” (Psalm 14 and Psalm 53). We should note that the Psalms are dualistic: they typically like to set the “just” and the “unjust” in opposition. (You can see this right from the beginning in Psalm 1), and they conclude that God is with the just but not with the unjust.

But New Testament thinking transcended all that. God’s love is poured out upon the innocent and the guilty; while we were “yet sinners,” Jesus died for us; Jesus continually commands us, “do not judge;” and explains to the judging Pharisees that he came not for the righteous but for sinners. Not only that but as the nails were being driven into his hands, Jesus prayed to forgive his executioners (who at that very moment were convinced they were doing the right thing). And how many times have we perhaps ended up doing the wrong things for all the right reasons; and how many times have we been satisfied by our attempts to justify the wrong things we are doing or have done?

And so, perhaps we too were at one time ignorant, resistant, hesitating or just sheer lazy, or perhaps we had lived a portion of our lives unable or unwilling to consider that there was anything in our lives that needed forgiveness---but look what happened to us!  And it might happen to others as well. As St. Paul taught us, God’s patience is ordered to our salvation. And thank God for that.

God bless you!