Passing Things
Advent begins. We are called to prepare the way for the Savior.
Does the Gospel asks me to evaluate whether I live as if God were absent? Do I go about my daily routines as if God did not matter much in my life?
Using the words of the Prayer after Communion, we pray that God’s grace this Advent might help us, while “walking amid passing things, to love the things of heaven.”
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Jesus – God Saves
Three times, different group of people expressed their expectation that the Christ would save himself.
They did not understand Jesus and his mission that he had been proclaiming to them.
One person understood. He was a criminal but he knew that Jesus, as his name indicates, had come to save others, not himself. (This Archangel had proclaimed the name Jesus, “God saves” at the moment of the Incarnation in Luke 1: 31 and also Matthew 1:21).
Jesus truly is the Savior of the world, and the King of the universe.
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I Am With You
Jesus warns us, “See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he.’”
Meanwhile, we don’t need to look elsewhere for a savior. We don’t have to wait. The Savior is already came.
Life has its challenges. Jesus also warns us of suffering, disasters, persecution, and event death. In all of these, the Savior is always with us.
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Children of God
Jesus came to reveal to us that God is our loving Father.
Then, by his cross and resurrection, Jesus made us “children of God.”
Thus, God’s life is not a future existence. God’s life is already flowing in us, God’s children, now, in this life.
We will die after this earthly life. But we will rise, because God’s life lasts forever.
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