If we read the New Testament, most of the passages call us to pursue lofty and noble standards, challenge us to strive for the highest and the best, to seek the potential that God has given us.
However, with these passages that call us and challenge us to what life can become, there is also a profoundly accurate and realistic acknowledgement of the way life is.
Such is the passage from the letter of Paul to the Christians in Rome: “Nothing good resides in me that is, in my flesh (my basic human nature). I can will what is right and good, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death (or from the conflict that rages within me)?”
There are some who would say that St. Paul was thinking about his life before he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus.
In those days, he was weak and suffered the inevitable consequences of the futile attempt to get right with God through obedience to all the commandments of the Law. But on the road to Damascus, his life changed, and he became a totally new and different person.
If we really look at the passage and the other parts of the letter, Paul was actually talking about his life before and after he met Jesus on the road to Damascus.
And this is also a description of every human life — which includes you and me. It means becoming a Christian does not free us from all internal conflict, and we no longer have to struggle with natural instincts and basic human desires.
To be a Christian is to have accepted by faith God’s grace, God’s unconditional love. It is believing that we are forgiven and brought into a right relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It is to break with one’s former life, and seek to live with new priorities. It is to have a new center for living–seeking God’s will rather than one’s own. All of that is new and different!
However, it does not mean that we do not have to struggle with evil, or wrongdoing has ended, and suddenly we become righteous and holy individuals. Remember the old adage, “The person who thinks he is a saint ain’t”?
As long as we live, there will be struggles and temptations to deny our faith, and give in to evil desires.
There was this announcement in the church newsletter: “There will be no Sunday School on Sunday. The Sunday School teacher left suddenly with the money of the church, and the church treasurer.”
There will always be the struggle to fight our evil desires even for Christians like you and me.
One time I talked to a couple who was married for 10 years. They had two beautiful daughters. They came to church almost every Sunday. I played volleyball with him in a church league. He was the star player in the church softball team. It would seem they were a happy family. But then, one day, the wife came to the office crying. She told me her husband left for another woman. Later, they sold their beautiful house, and moved to another place.
If we look at our lives, there are times when we, too, are tempted to do things which we had believed are wrong. But we do it anyway.
The plain fact is that even after giving our lives to Christ, we sometimes fail to be his followers, just as the apostle Paul knew he failed.
Knowing how we ought to live is not a guarantee that we always live the right way. According to St. Paul, “Part of us wants what God wants, but part of us continues to want what we want.”
What is then the answer to this human dilemma? Paul then wrote, “O miserable creature that I am! Who can rescue me from my nature which is doomed to failure and defeat?”
Paul then answers this, “God alone in Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God!” And then comes the conclusion to it all: “There is no condemnation for those who are united with Christ Jesus because in Christ Jesus the life-giving law of the Spirit has set you free from the law of sin and death.”
God, through Jesus Christ, has provided the way: We must remain united with Jesus Christ! The strength that we humans need to be what we really want to be, and the power to live the life that God calls us to live are available, only as we stay in intimate relationship with Christ.
By ourselves, we are weak and impotent, destined to fail and fall. On our own, we are not going to make it. But linked with Christ, we have a new strength — Christ’s strength — undergirding our own.
This is the message of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Jesus invites us to come to the table to be linked with him.
Remember the story of the Prodigal Son or that of the Loving Father? The younger brother broke his relationship with his Father and left home. The older brother did not leave home but was resentful and bitter, wallowing in self-pity and self-righteousness. Both of their lives were empty and futile. But the story did not end there, for the focus of the story is not on the two sons and their foolishness, but on their father and his love, his eagerness to have his sons live in fellowship with him.
Next week we will start the University Christian Life Emphasis Week at Silliman. Throughout the week, we will share the story of the gospel. It is the story of how Jesus comes to us with love, asking us to be linked closely with him.
It is through him can we have an abundant life. By ourselves, we do not have enough strength. With Christ, we can do all things who strengthens us. By ourselves, we cannot find the way. With Christ who is the way, we are led to life abundant. By ourselves, all the truths that we know cannot give joy in our hearts. With Christ who is the truth, we come to know the source of joy.
Seeking to go his way, staying close to him, bound to him by faith, we are not alone. The promise of Jesus is, “Lo, I am with you always even to the end of the world.” Thanks be to God!
