coryonomics

Cyril of Jerusalem writes:

“Wherever Jesus appears, there also is salvation. If he sees a tax collector seated at the counter, he makes him an apostle and an evangelist; if he is buried among the dead, he raises them; he gives sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. When he walks around the pools, it is not to inspect the buildings but to heal the sick.” (Homily on the Paralytic by the Pool, translation by Edward Yarnold S.J.)

The nature of God is healing. The nature of God is reconciliation. The nature of God is wholeness. What else is holiness other than God being God? What else is our holiness called to be other than our true state, that of a relationship with God? Holiness is about living a sustainable relationship with the creator of life. In other words, it is living life the way life is meant to be. Jesus Christ is Gods answer to our severed relationship. Because God alone is whole, he alone can extend the invitation to reconciliation. His presence is reconciling; his presence is saving.

This Sunday 5 youth are being confirmed in our church. This is an incredible moment with the potential for powerful impact on their lives as well as those of the church. It is a moment when Jesus appears, when healing takes place, when lives are made new. It is a moment, I fear, we too often take for granted and lose sight of what God is doing.

Our history, which extends to the beginning of time, is immersed in baptismal theology. Our origin story is one that begins with God surveying chaos; troubled waters, troubled land. God speaks and his word penetrates confusion and brings order, light, and life. When the word of God appears, there is also salvation. It is through troubled waters that the old identity of brutality and brokenness are destroyed and a new image and purpose are created.

What I find incredibly amazing is that God uses that which was chaos to make beautiful order. In other words, one’s old self is not exiled but transformed. The Israelites were a people of slavery whose existence was guided by tyrants and were baptized through the sea of reeds and found themselves a free people on the other side. They were the same people with a new nature, a new purpose. They were a people called to live instead of die.

The Gospel of John records no new message and no new word, but a new form. John tells us that the “Word of God is Flesh”. The word appears and there is salvation. The word of God is Jesus Christ. What waters must we cross now? It is a living water that transforms our nature by reconciling us with truth, by healing us with the only reality; God is the only truth and his truth is love. His truth is relationship. We stand on one shore with chaos, brokenness, even in our presumed orderly lives. Our lives may be orderly, but so were the Hebrews when they were in slavery. But when Jesus appears, the waters before us call us to something dangerously wonderful. We are called to drown and in that drowning, be raised to a new life. We are the thief who is now an apostle, the dead who is now alive, the blind who sees, the deaf who hears. In our baptism we are made alive with a new reality: a reality of life, wholeness, and one of striving with God. In our baptism we are called to no longer live from a place of darkness and chaos, but God has hovered over our waters and penetrated us with his word and brought forth order, light, and life. Let us live from that into that relationship.