20141114 PREPARING FOR THE LAST DAY BY LIVING A LIFE OF LOVE
ROOTED IN OUR FAITH IN THE INCARNATION
First
reading 2 John 1:4-9 ©
It
has given me great joy to find that your children have been living the life of
truth as we were commanded by the Father. I am writing now, dear lady, not to
give you any new commandment, but the one which we were given at the beginning,
and to plead: let us love one another.
To love is to live according to his
commandments: this is the commandment which you have heard since the beginning,
to live a life of love.
There are many deceivers about in the world,
refusing to admit that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. They are the
Deceiver; they are the Antichrist. Watch yourselves, or all our work will be
lost and not get the reward it deserves. If anybody does not keep within the
teaching of Christ but goes beyond it, he cannot have God with him: only those
who keep to what he taught can have the Father and the Son with them.
Psalm
Psalm
118:1-2,10-11,17-18 ©
They
are happy who follow God’s law.
They
are happy whose life is blameless,
who follow God’s law!
They
are happy who do his will,
seeking him with all their hearts.
They
are happy who follow God’s law.
I
have sought you with all my heart;
let me not stray from your commands.
I
treasure your promise in my heart
lest I sin against you.
They
are happy who follow God’s law.
Bless
your servant and I shall live
and obey your word.
Open
my eyes that I may see
the wonders of your law.
They
are happy who follow God’s law.
Gospel
Acclamation Heb4:12
Alleluia,
alleluia!
The
word of God is something alive and active:
it
can judge secret emotions and thoughts.
Alleluia!
Or Lk21:28
Alleluia,
alleluia!
Stand
erect, hold your heads high,
because
your liberation is near at hand.
Alleluia!
Gospel Luke 17:26-37 ©
Jesus
said to the disciples:
‘As it was in Noah’s day, so will it also be
in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating and drinking, marrying wives
and husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and the flood came
and destroyed them all. It will be the same as it was in Lot’s day: people were
eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but the day Lot
left Sodom, God rained fire and brimstone from heaven and it destroyed them
all. It will be the same when the day comes for the Son of Man to be revealed.
‘When that day comes, anyone on the housetop,
with his possessions in the house, must not come down to collect them, nor must
anyone in the fields turn back either. Remember Lot’s wife. Anyone who tries to
preserve his life will lose it; and anyone who loses it will keep it safe. I
tell you, on that night two will be in one bed: one will be taken, the other
left; two women will be grinding corn together: one will be taken, the other
left.’ The disciples interrupted. ‘Where, Lord?’ they asked. He said, ‘Where
the body is, there too will the vultures gather.’
PREPARING
FOR THE LAST DAY BY LIVING A LIFE OF LOVE ROOTED IN OUR FAITH IN THE
INCARNATION
SCRIPTURE
READINGS: 2 JN 4-9; LK 17:26-37
As we
come towards the end of the liturgical year, the liturgy naturally
focuses on the Second Coming of Christ. Most of us hope it would not be
so soon because our faith and love for Christ is still not so intense and we
are not ready to meet Him. But for those of us who are going through a
difficult time, we hope that the end would come soon as we have given up hope
on life.
When we
speak of the Second Coming, inevitably the question of “when is the last
day?” will arise. Indeed, the tendency to speculate the exact date of
the last day is as old as the Bible. Jesus warns us that such speculation
is vain.
The
truth is that the last day, be it for all or for us individually, can come
any time. As the gospel says, it may come when we are going about our
ordinary duties in our daily life. Indeed, Jesus said, “As it was in
Noah’s day … in Lot’s day: people were eating and drinking, buying and selling,
planting and building” and “it will be the same when the day comes for the Son
of Man to be revealed.”
When
that day comes, we must realize that we cannot take our loved ones or
our possessions with us. On the Day of Judgment, we have to face God
alone. Hence, Jesus said, “When that day comes, anyone on the housetop,
with his possessions in the house, must not come down to collect them, nor must
anyone in the fields turn back either.” This would surely be a good
reminder that we can only take ourselves to heaven. Everything would have
to be left behind except our loved ones whom we will meet later. We only
have our virtues or our evil to take with us.
This
explains why when the disciples asked Jesus, “Where Lord?”, Jesus
replied, “Where the body is, there too will the vultures
gather.” In other words, we will not be taken anywhere, because where
the body or the person is, there the kingdom exists. Indeed, earlier
on, Jesus had said that the Kingdom of God is in us and among us. Clearly, the
kingdom of God or heaven is present when the conditions of the Kingdom life in
the person are present.
Consequently,
when Jesus said, “on that night two women will be grinding corn together: one
will be taken, the other left”, he is warning us that judgment is individual.
We can be very close to someone, such as with our spouse. But when it
comes to the matter of salvation, one cannot leave his salvation to another
person by proxy. Quite often husbands would leave the duties of spiritual
life to their wives. No one can deliver us from hell. Only we
ourselves can have intimacy with Jesus. We need to make our personal
choice for Christ.
If we
are too preoccupied with the world, we will lose the opportunity to be prepared
for the end. In order that we do not face the end unprepared, we must
live in such a way that He will find us ready when He comes. In the words
of St John, we must therefore live a life of love. He said, “To
love is to live according to his commandments: this is the commandment which
you have heard since the beginning…” In a similar vein, Jesus warns us that,
“anyone who tries to preserve his life will lose it; and anyone who loses it
will keep it safe.”
How can
we live this life of love? What is the secret? It is to live
the new commandment that Jesus gave us in John’s gospel, “love one another
as I have loved you.” How did Jesus love us? Through His
Incarnation! His coming in the flesh is critical in helping and
empowering us to love. Why is it so important that we confess that Jesus
Christ has come in the flesh?
Firstly,
only when we know and hold that Jesus is truly and fully human, can we live out
this life of love as commanded by Jesus. Otherwise we can exonerate
ourselves that because we are not divine, we cannot do the Father’s will.
But precisely, Jesus is human and the command is to love one another as He has
loved us, with a human love in a divine way.
Secondly,
faith in the incarnation means that the incarnation is an ongoing and
permanent reality. With the Incarnation, Jesus took humanity unto
Himself. As a result, through Jesus, God entered into human life and the human
situation. Humanity and the world has therefore become the sacrament of
God’s presence and love. So when we love each other, the love of God in
us is made visible.
Thirdly,
faith in the incarnation is a presupposition for faith in the resurrection.
If Jesus had no real body, there would be no resurrection. This would
contradict the fundamental tenet of our faith. If Jesus did not truly die
then He could not be truly be raised. If Jesus did not die, then the
Father’s love for us would be placed in doubt. And if Jesus were not
raised, we cannot speak of Jesus as the Risen Lord, since the resurrection
vindicates the cause and message of Jesus and confirms Him as the One sent by
the Father.
Within
this context, we can understand why John is so adamant about this confession
of faith. To deny the incarnation is to deny that God can fully enter
into the life of man. Without the incarnation, it would imply that God
can only save spirits but not our bodies. The body would then perish
forever. If that were so, there would be no real and ultimate communion
between God and us. We are therefore not saved because we are human
beings with body and spirit. Hence, we can only become what Jesus is only
if Jesus were truly God and truly man. The wonderful truth is that Jesus became
what we are so that we can become what He is. As the Fathers of the
Church say, Christ is humanized so that we can be divinized.
In
summary, faith in Jesus’ incarnation paves the way for faith in His passion and
resurrection. It is ultimately faith in the paschal mystery
because it reveals to us the life and love of the Father for us in giving up
His Son for our salvation. But more than God just revealing His love for
us in the Paschal Mystery, the love between the Father and the Son is
manifested as well. The incarnation and death of Jesus manifest Christ’s
self-emptying love for the Father; and the resurrection reveals the Father’s
fidelity to Jesus. Thus, in the paschal mystery we understand the depth
of Jesus’ new commandment.
He is
inviting us to share the love He has with the Father. This love is called the
Holy Spirit. When we share the love of the Trinity, we too share in the
life of God because we share in His Spirit. The same Holy Spirit that
made possible the Incarnation and the resurrection of Jesus will also fill us
with His presence, and the Father at the end of time will raise us from the
dead too, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Finally,
it is faith in the Incarnation and resurrection that is also the basis for our
faith in the Eucharist. That is why the Eucharist is appropriately the
celebration of the paschal mystery. For the Eucharist is an extension
of the Incarnation made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus and
in the sending of the Holy Spirit to the Church.
So if
we want to live a godly life based on love, the love we see in the person of
Jesus, then we must found our faith in Him. Understandably, John
condemned those who were destroying the foundation of Christianity when they
tried to present a Christianity that strayed away from the teaching of Jesus
and most of all, faith in the historical Christ. He warned, “If anybody does
not keep within the teaching of Christ but goes beyond it, he cannot have God
with him: only those who keep to what he taught can have the Father and the Son
with them.” Truly, Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man, must be the yardstick
of all our thinking and values. The failure to know Jesus personally will
lead us away from the truth of life and love. That is why; the Holy
Father invites us to contemplate on the face of Jesus in the third millennium
as the way to evangelize the world.
WRITTEN BY THE MOST REV
WILLIAM GOH
ARCHBISHOP
OF SINGAPORE
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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