From death to eternal life

OUR Christian faith tells us very clearly how our death can lead us to eternal life. “Whoever keeps my word will never see death.” (Jn 8,51) That’s what Christ said. 

 Of course, these are words that have to be taken in faith. Otherwise, there is no way we can take them seriously, especially nowadays when there are just so many philosophies and ideologies that can sound more attractive and seductive, especially if they show and give some immediate advantages and conveniences. 

 Let’s hope that in our heart of hearts we can repeat St. Peter’s words: “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (Jn 6,68) 

 We have to be wary of our tendency to be seduced by our worldly cultures and systems. Let’s listen to the warning given by St. Paul: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy…” (Col 2,8) 

 And he continues: “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness.” (2,9) This means that the fullness of our humanity can only be achieved through our full identification with Christ who also made it possible for us to attain it. 

 How? Again St. Paul provides the answer: “In him (Christ) you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.” (2,11-12) 

 The secret, therefore, of having our death as a way to our resurrection is to die with Christ. Only with him can our resurrection, our victory over sin and death, take place after our death. St. Paul encapsulated this most wonderful truth of our faith when he said, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Rom 6,5) 

 No wonder then that Christ culminated his redemptive work with his passion and death on the cross. Only then would his own resurrection take place. Christ made this point clear when after being rightly identified by Peter as ‘the Christ of God,’ he proceeded to talk about his passion, death and resurrection. 

 “The Son of Man must suffer greatly,” he said, “and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.” (Lk 9,22) 

 We have to deepen our belief that with Christ’s resurrection, sin and death have been definitively conquered, and a new life in God is given to us. We are now a new creation, with the power of Christ to conquer sin and death and everything else that stands in the way of our becoming true children of God. 

 And so we have every reason to think that we can live forever in Christ over whom death no longer has dominion. In spite of whatever, we have every reason to be happy and confident, as long as we are faithful to Christ. 

 We just need to realize more deeply that Christ is alive and wants to live his life with us, because we are patterned after him. Let us not miss this most golden opportunity.

When the truth would really set us free

WE need to be clear about this. The truth that would really set us free is when we identify ourselves with Christ who, while teaching what is good and evil, eventually bore all the sins of men for our salvation. More than just proclaiming the truth in terms of what is right and wrong, he offered mercy to all, including those who crucified him. That is the ultimate truth. 

 All this truth of our faith that relates truth to Christ is encapsulated in Christ’s words: “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 

 To be sure, truth is not only matter of facts and data, much less, the possibility and the fear that something that is speculative would happen in the future. The truth that would really set us free is when like Christ, we are willing to suffer even as we proclaim always with charity what is right and wrong, what is good and evil. 

 In this life, to be in the truth and enjoy authentic freedom, we have to expect suffering. The idea of truth and freedom that excludes suffering here on earth is neither the truth and the freedom that Christ revealed to us. 

 We need to understand this truth of our faith well, because nowadays it is very easy to be confused about where to find freedom and how freedom should be. That’s because all sorts of ideas promoted by all kinds of ideologies and spread by powerful groups have been flooding the world. 

 Nowadays, freedom is mainly understood as the power to do whatever a person or a group would like to do. It is purely a subjective freedom, based only on one’s conception of it or on the consensus of a certain group. 

 There is also the erroneous idea that freedom is anything that gives one some pleasure, some convenience, some advantage, etc. Again it is an idea of freedom that is self-oriented, not other-oriented which is how it should be, since freedom is a matter of loving, and loving is self-giving, not self-serving. 

 Because of these confusing if not erroneous ideas, the sacrifices involved in loving the way Christ has loved us—Christ who is the standard of love and freedom—turn off many people who cannot accept the freedom offered to us by Christ. After all, Christ himself said that if we want to follow him, we have to deny ourselves and carry the cross. (cfr. Mt 16,24) 

 We need to promote the real freedom that is offered to us by Christ. We have to preach about it, in season and out of season, and explain it thoroughly, using arguments that are adapted to the different mentalities and cultures of the people. 

 Our problem in this regard is usually that of being ineffective in our preaching because we use complex or subtle arguments, examples, etc., that are above people’s head. This is not to mention the fact that many times people find inconsistency in what we preach and in what we do. We do not walk the talk. 

 If only we manage to convince people, using both human and supernatural means, that we can actually get in contact with Christ who is always alive and is in touch with us, then we can see this authentic freedom lived out all over the place.

Christology and soteriology

THESE are two branches of Christian theology that study the significance of Christ in our life. Christology deals with the study of the person of Christ, the Son of God who became man. Soteriology deals with the study of Christ as our Savior. Both studies are meant to give us deep and effective understanding of Christ in our life who actually is everything to us. 

 In the gospel of St. John, chapter 8, verses 21 to 30, we see how Christ lamented how the people still could not know who he really was in spite of the wonderful teachings he gave them and the miracles that he did. At one point, he said: “‘For if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.” So they said to him, ‘Who are you?’ Jesus said to them, “What I told you from the beginning…’” 

 We all have the need to know Christ well. This need involves not only a few of us. It involves all of us. And so, we just have to see how we can go through these theological sciences of Christology and soteriology, which can be done both formally and informally. 

 As the gospels narrate in many occasions, in spite of all the miracles and the wonderful teachings he gave them, many of the people continued to be doubtful and even suspicious of him. On several occasions, they even tried to harm and eliminate him. Of course, in the end they got their way. They managed to put Christ to death in the most ignominious way to die, i.e., to be crucified. 

 It is a phenomenon that continues to take place today, in spite of the most convincing of the miracles of Christ—his own resurrection that later led to his ascension into heaven that was witnessed by a good number of people. 

 That many of us continue to doubt and even to be suspicious of him can be seen in the fact that we continue to take him for granted, to put him aside from our daily affairs as if he is irrelevant or just a drag to our activities, and even to openly reject and to be hostile to him. 

 We need to correct this predicament immediately and strongly, otherwise we would be fully cut off from the very source and keeper of our humanity. There are many ways to resolve this problem. We obviously cannot cover all of them, but we can at least mention a few. 

 One way is to disabuse ourselves from banking our belief in Christ mainly on some tremendous miracles and extraordinary events. That would be like testing or doubting God always. We should believe in Christ, with or without miracles. 

 Christ himself complained about this. “Unless you people see signs and wonders you will not believe,” he said to a court official whose daughter was dying. (Jn 4,48) 

 We need to strengthen our belief in Christ by undertaking the relevant study of his person and mission, and by submitting ourselves to a certain plan that would make our personal and collective relation with Christ alive. 

 We certainly have to learn how to pray, how to offer sacrifices. We have to develop virtues that would resemble us little by little with him. We need to avail of the sacraments. We have to learn to wage a lifelong ascetical struggle since we will always be hounded by the enemies of God and of our own soul, starting with our own weaknesses, etc.