Foreshortened Grace (Mid-week Message)

 

Fr. Tony's Mid-week Message

December 16, 2015

Foreshortened Grace

 

St. Augustine had the great insight that the miracle stories we see in scripture are often simply scenes where the natural processes we see around us are sped up. Water, taken into a living vine, enriched by sunlight and soil nutrients over a season, becomes fruit that ripen, are crushed and fermented, and becomes wine. Yet at Cana, Jesus condenses the natural process and makes it happen in a word. We heal from illness slowly and gradually, with nourishment and rest. Yet Jesus did it with a touch and a blessing. Miracles summarize, recapitulate, and embody what we otherwise see as natural processes. In theological terms, a sign from God to be marveled at (what the Latin word miraculum means) shows us in a moment the ultimate good intentions and purposes of God. They bring close God's final loving purpose.

 

In this sense the birth, life, and death of Jesus constitute a miracle. By becoming wholly human while remaining wholly divine, he shows God's final good and loving intention. He heals. He announces the Reign of God has already arrived. He teaches ethics that seem impossibly demanding to us, but says that with God all things are possible. The worst of life is seen in his being rejected, betrayed, and unjustly killed. The best hopes we have are seen in his being raised and received back by God. 

 

Biblical scholar and bishop N.T. Wright says,

 

"The whole point of what Jesus was up to was that he was doing up close, in the present, what he was promising long-term in the future. And what he was promising for that future and doing in the present was not saving souls for a disembodied eternity but rescuing people from the corruption and decay of the way the world presently is so they could enjoy, already in the present, the renewal of creation which is God's ultimate purpose—and so they could thus become colleagues and partners in that large project."    

 

Jesus calls us to follow him, to also become foreshortened grace for others. 

 

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Tony+