Blog # 350 Jesus Savior Today

Blog # 350  Jesus Savior Today

             Most of us are familiar with the  important distinction that can be expressed in the terms wedding and marriage. A wedding takes place at a single hour in a particular place.  Beginning with a wedding, a marriage is identified by the unique love of a  husband and wife chosen by them but designed by God to continue forever.

              The day of their wedding is identified and measured by the calendar and continues for twenty-four hours as any other day in spite of its very special character and the memories it engenders for the married couple and their friends.  The event of their marriage  identifies and shapes the entire remainder of their days on earth.

               A similar distinction applies to all who have been Baptized  We can distinguish the day of our birth, identified as occurring in a particular hour in a particular place  somewhere in the world, and the event of our birth which continues as long as we live.

              By faith we know the unique event that began with the conception of each of us continues  on forever.  Just so, the human event of the life of Jesus on earth, now glorified forever through His resurrection from the dead, continues on in a unique way for the salvation of all people in His Body which is the Church.  The Word of God , incarnate in Jesus, was sent with a message and a mission to accomplish.  In John's Gospel Jesus identifies Himself thirty time as beings sent by the Father.

               Then as the Father sent Jesus, Jesus sends His disciples.  (Jn. 17: 18). We, as members of Jesus' Body, united with Him as branches on a vine, share the same divine life and the same mission as He to save and sanctify our particular moment of history and our small portion of the vast vineyard of  the Lord which covers the entire earth and all of creation.

                This is a tremendously important insight that is ours by faith that few seem to be conscious of as we go about our daily human lives with little or no awareness of our identity by Sanctifying Grace and the event of our Baptism of  being called  and enabled to be a current living expression of and witness to the love of Jesus for us and for all creation.  What light this insight throws upon the full meaning of the words of Jesus commanding us to love one another as He loves us!  (Jn, 13: 34; 15: 12.   ).  Exactly so,  not merely in remembrance of His love on earth in past ages, not merely in imitation of that love, but sharing and living it, in our minds by faith, in our hearts by our desire, and in our bodies by obedience to His commands.

               All of our natural human thoughts speech and actions in obedience to the Father's will are enhanced and glorified  through our union with Jesus in the gift of Sanctifying Grace.  On the other hand our sins, in the light of that same gift of Grace, are more shameful and tragic.