FULFILLMENT - A REFLECTION

 This Reflection is taken from the Sunday Devotion written by this blogger for Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton, SD on  Sunday, February 21, 2021.

1 Peter 3:18-22

Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you-- not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

Mark 1:9-15

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe (have faith) in the good news.”

The Bible texts of the Old Testament and the Epistle lessons are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

REFLECTION

May Christ who suffered for sins once for all bring all to God.   Amen

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In Ash Wednesday’s exhortation to observe a Holy Lent, we heard how Lent was used in the early church as a period of instruction for the newly converted as they prepared for baptism.  As such, Lent continues to serve as an invitation to explore the Mystery of Faith that was signified in our baptisms.  This Sunday and next Sunday our Gospel lessons will be taken from the Gospel of Mark which will help set the stage for a brief excursion into what can be consider the great initiation manual of Christianity, the Gospel of John in which Jesus, the Word made flesh, guides us into a deeper understanding of our relationship with God.

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On this first Sunday in Lent, I cannot think of a better quote from scripture to start this seasonal excursion into the Mystery of Faith than the opening line in today’s reading from First Peter, “Christ  suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you (to bring all) to God.” 

CHRIST SUFFERED ONCE FOR ALL.  

This is a scandalous notion that doesn’t fit well with the world’s long-standing practice of retributive justice being meted out on all wrong-doers of this world and the blatant sinners in this life. There is a sense that if we don’t punish the wrong-doers, “God will get them in the end.”  It is true that God gets everyone in the end, but that is not what most people are thinking when saying it.  Common understanding is that the good deserve to be rewarded and the bad to get their just rewards; that in order for there to be a heaven, there has to be a hell. Our life experiences largely validate this dualistic good guy/bad guy, heaven and hell, yin and yang perspective. 

For most of human history this perspective held true until Jesus was “put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.”  

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Ash Wednesday reminded us that the human soul is a composite of the cosmic dust and ash we are physically made of and the life-giving energy of God, the spirit that was breathed into the primal sludge that eventually became us. The physical is what garners most of our attention in this life because it passes away, but the risen Christ focuses our attention on what gives us life in the first place, the very essence of God, which does not pass away.

Paul explains it this way, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here.” [2 Corinthians 5:17]  In today’s second lesson Jesus put it this way, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and have faith in the good news.”

There is an undeniable sense of paradox running throughout the New Testament informing us followers of Jesus that we exist in two realms of reality simultaneously; that of the temporal world in which everything becomes a work in progress and that of a greater reality, the Kingdom of God, in which everything is fulfilled, everything accomplished, everything completed, everything saved, and where all is One.

The Gospel of John explores this mysterious paradox and is dedicated to helping us embrace it in the here and now.  It is most notably expressed in Jesus’ high priestly prayer where he describes his followers as being in the world but not of the world.  [John17] 

We are limited in what we know and limited in our ability to what we can know on this side of life.  Our guide to this mysterious, paradoxical existence is Jesus in whom, as the incarnation of God the Son, we see the fullness of the whole God-imagined living souls we are.  

Now if all of this seems a bit deep and incomprehensible, IT IS. That is the nature of a mystery and why we talk about the Mystery of Faith.  There is an incomprehensibility to this mystery that the world we live in does not fully grasp, and our only grasp on this mystery is given to us by the God-given grace of faith.

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We followers of Jesus are in possession of a scandal in which nothing is lost because Christ unconditionally died for all, the good and the bad, the sinner and the saint. With God nothing is wasted, and that is indeed good news worth knowing and worth telling others about.  

If everybody in this world could embrace the truth that in God’s eyes all are saved, this world would be a much different world, but unfortunately the way of this world continues to maintain the illusion of heaven and hell by making this life a heaven for a select few and a living hell for a vast majority.

We followers of Jesus are in possession of a great mystery that consists of a much different narrative, a greater reality where all are saved:

Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again:

With Christ we die, With Christ we are risen, With Christ we will come again.  

During this season of Lent, we will briefly explore what it means to be in the world but not of the world, and that the call to repentance is a call to turn our attention to the Good News that in Christ all are brought to God.

Amen.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm