NOTES for Gal 3:8-12

Today the apostle Paul speaks to us about faith, which alone can bring about our justification. He quotes the prophet Habakkuk, emphasizing that faith alone, and nothing else, can become for us a source of life.

On Christmas night we will witness a strange and inexplicable miracle: the God Whom nothing can contain will appear in this world as a helpless Infant. He Himself becomes like the tiny mustard seed in His parable that we read today in the Gospel of Luke. He does not come to the sound of trumpets as a Warrior and Ruler; on the contrary, the Lord is forced to become a refugee and flee to Egypt from the very human evil over which we expect Him to triumph. And so an effort of faith is required of us if we are to worship Him with the shepherds and the Magi. It is precisely this effort that the Lord speaks of: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.”