Main news for 27 November 2020

Every person wants to receive something good from God, and usually asks for that. That is, he asks for grace, because the word "grace" means a "good gift." The apostle Paul writes that God has already given this good gift of His: He gave His Son, the best thing He has! And the Son accomplished the chief good that we need, even if we do not realize it: salvation. This is liberation from the inertia of evil and sin in our life; it is the filling of life with goodness and love. And this good has been extended to "all people." Why, then, for all two thousand years after Christ's coming has there been so much darkness, pain, and horror in the world? Has the grace of God appeared or not?

It did indeed appear, but how fully was it received... The Light came into the world, but people loved darkness. All people? Thank God, no! And these two thousand years have given stunning examples of holiness. And our task is not to look at how other people are doing, but to receive again and again the grace offered to us, the outstretched hand of Christ, who desires and is ready to pull us out of the swamp of sin and death that is sucking us in.

Reading in Paul's letters about the life he proposes Christians should lead, one cannot help recalling wisdom writings, examples of which are easy to find, for instance, in the Book of Proverbs. The call to chastity, to responsibility in household matters, and to respect for elders (vv. 1-6) was by no means something new. In a certain sense, the call for slaves to obey their masters not out of fear but for conscience's sake (vv. 9-10), which in the letter to Titus is not heard for the first time, could be considered new. This, however, is not surprising: ancient Israel never knew the mass slaveholding that characterized Egypt, Greece, or Rome. But the apostle, it is clear, applies the principles of social relations reflected in the tradition of wisdom writing to the realities of the Greco-Roman world. He evidently considers, if not the recommendations of the ancient sages themselves, then at least the logic that produced them to be universal enough.

Of course, such calls and exhortations were connected not least with political messianism, which at that time was widely spread in the Synagogue and was probably also entering church circles, above all, of course, the Judeo-Christian milieu, which then largely determined the life of the Church as a whole. Paul was a determined opponent of such ideas and views. And, as is clear, not only because political messianism was for him an obviously false messianism that could lead to nothing but senseless uprisings and subsequent reprisals. The main point was elsewhere: the apostle never forgot the Savior's words that His Kingdom is "not of this world." Social reforms, political struggle, or uprisings by themselves could not bring the triumph of the Kingdom nearer, as the apostle knew perfectly well. For Paul, society was only a means and an environment: a means for witness to the Kingdom and an environment in which witnesses must live temporarily, until the complete transfiguration of the world. And he wants this environment to hinder as little as possible the main task for Christians: their own spiritual formation and witness (vv. 11-14), in which the meaning of the Christian life consists.

Grace is already here, with everyone; all that remains is to agree to receive it. This is the first and hardest step, because by taking it we agree to acknowledge several inconvenient facts. First, God came to us Himself. He is already near us, and in recognizing the reality of His presence we recognize that we have spent an impermissibly long time deceiving ourselves, trying not to notice it. Second, we acknowledge our weakness and infirmity, our inability to leave the shadow of death by ourselves. We acknowledge our dependence on the Source of Life, God's primacy in everything and over everyone. Third, we have to acknowledge that salvation is given to everyone, without any exceptions. Even if we have our own list of those who should be refused or given first place, we have to acknowledge that everyone is offered the choice of salvation. These three facts make life very inconvenient and unpleasant if we want to ignore them. We do have that possibility, but is there any desire to return to an existence where there is no place for grace and mercy?