The Lord Made Us, We Belong to Him
by Fr. David M. Knight

Monday, October 21, 2024
Twenty-Ninth Week of the Year
Lectionary 473
Eph 2:1-10/Lk 12:13-21
Ephesians 2:1-10 is a summary of the basic—but seldom taught and hardly known—mystery of redemption.
Prior to receiving the life of God in Baptism, we “lived at the level of the flesh, following the wishes and impulses of the flesh.” Whether great sinners or not, we had only human appetites and desires, and human wisdom to direct them to nothing more than human fulfillment. But Paul assumes that we were, “like everyone else,” sinners:
dead because of our sins, and following the course of this world [of our culture]... the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath.
God “brought us to life with Christ.” This presumes, of course, the mystery of incorporation into Christ’s crucified body by Baptism, so that we died with and in Christ. By the same mystery, “both with and in Christ Jesus God raised us up.” Because we died with and in Christ, our sins were annihilated. Because we rose with and in him, we are a “new creation.” We have become Christ. (See Romans 6:3-8; 2Corinthians 9:17; Galatians 6:15; Catechism of the Catholic Church no. 795.)
This is “not our own doing; it is God’s gift: not a reward for anything we have accomplished, so we must not pride ourselves on it.” We do not “save ourselves” by our good works. We are saved by incorporation into Christ, and in all we do, it is no longer just we who live and act, but it is Christ who lives and acts in us. To be is to be Christ:
For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
God has “seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” God already sees us in the final glory of the “end time,” when we will all be one with God and with each other “in Christ,” and “form that perfect man who is Christ come to full stature.” (Ephesians 4:12-13)
We know our beginning, our present identity, and our end. That is the mystery of our redemption.
Luke 12:13-21 is irrelevant for us if we have understood and accepted what Baptism really means. It is to “lose our life” in this world in order find fullness of life forever. It is to abandon all we have and are into the hands of God. We “sell all” for the “pearl of great price,” the “treasure hidden in the field.” We give all to God, and he puts it back into our hands to manage for him as stewards of the kingship of Christ. No Christian who has done this is “rich.” (See Matthew 13:44-46; 16:24-28.)
Initiative: Ponder the mystery of redemption. Don’t assume you understand it.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry

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