CATECHESIS ON THE WORD OF
GOD
The tree must prove itself in the
fruiting.
Life must justify itself in the
living.
The proof of the cake is in the
eating.
These are three great principles
of life , which all say that the result is greater than the claim. When we are
presenting to you the Bible as the rule on which we should base our lives that
claim should be proven with actual taste of the result right here and now in
order to convince you that what we claim
are true.
Hence, before giving you the
Bible, we take some piece of it, a slice from the whole, and put it into your
mouth and let you taste it, whether it is nice to eat or not.
As in a cake, we will try to take
two slices, one which is “Abraham” and the other which is “Exodus” and let you
to taste it whether it is good for you or not. “Abraham” and “Exodus” are two
themes from the Bible which give to the Church a very powerful word of God.
In studying these two themes, it
is not our intention to give a biblical culture, that is, to acquaint you with
a story of a man named Abraham or an event that had happened long time ago
among certain people that do not have any relation or relevance to our present
life since they are of a different time and culture. What we want to do is try
to present to you these stories with a view of making you understand what we
mean by “Word of God”.
Word of God is an statement or
utterance which has been made by God within the context of history. That is why
the nature and the effect can be seen, studied, touched and tasted in reality.
Abraham and Exodus are a word of
God. Both happened within the context of concrete persons and people, within a
definite historical time and place. God acts in history by giving us His word
in order to enlighten our reality, which oftentimes is always blurred or hidden
to the perception of our senses and mind because these are distorted by the
devil or by sin.
We need the word of God to
enlighten us in our reality. Our reality is that we are creatures endowed with
life in order to die, to be sacrificed, for the others. This is the Christ
within us, the universal Law of Love. We realize ourselves, our persons, only
if it is offered, given for the others in order to be killed and destroyed by
loving and accepting the defects, the faults, the weaknesses, the stupidities,
abnormalities and vices of the others without being scandalized, terrified,
rattled or angered.
Abaraham is a word of God for
FAITH.
And, Exodus is a word of God for
LIBERATION.
If we want to taste and see the
result of FITH and LIBERATION, then, let us eat the word of God which is
ABRAHAM and EXODUS.
Our reality is that we are beings
for death. Sometimes the event of death that confronts us, the cross that God
provides us, scandalizes the world. But from the viewpoint of faith, God
provides us the cross, the event of death, that will make our life glorious.
From death and evil, the Lord draws life and goodness. Because God has provided
for your cross, for the event of death that you do not understand, He has also
provided you Jesus Christ risen, and in him this cross no longer kills you but
glorifies you. To the man of faith in front of death, in front of everything
that kills and destroys him, the answer he makes is that “God provides”. This
is Abraham, and “Abraham” is the word of God for FAITH; that is, to believe in
the promise that God will always provide for you.
Faith is a way. Abraham has
received the promise of land and son. The announcement of this promise of land
and son started him on the way. Abraham journeyed a way to learn to believe. We
have seen how God fulfilled His promises in Abraham in the end, convincing us
that faith and trust in God’s promises will bring fruit and give better result
than to trust merely on ourselves, on our plans, on our strength and on our
goodness.
Isaac is the prefiguration of the
Servant who is Jesus Christ. He is the lamb which God provided to Abraham as a
victim instead of his son Isaac on top of Mt. Moriah. God had provided him a
lamb instead, the Servant of Yahweh, who is Jesus Christ.
The word “Abraham” continues to
save us from our situation of reality which is death and condemnation to a life
of slavery to the Devil, in order to bring life and freedom to us through the
announcement of God’s promise of a servant who is God’s son within us which is
the Christian, who is Jesus Christ himself risen from the dead. He is the son
promised by God who will be impregnated and born to us if we accept in faith
the word of salvation which had been promised to us through the announcement of
the gospel and through the journey of faith which is the catechumenal way.
Exodus, too, is a word of God for
LIBERATION, a passage from our situation of slavery to a situation of freedom.
(Tell the story of Exodus). Is there someone who feels himself a slave to
anything like vices or bad habits, by
sex, by the faults of his/her wife or husband, by illness or bad attitude of
his son who would not study, by the caprices of a daughter who is headstrong,
by a job which kills him and brings him unhappiness and dissatisfaction, by his
abnormalities, by financial crisis and debacle, or for any other kind of
oppression, let him take the word “Exodus” and make a Passover with us, a way
of getting out and passing from slavery and oppression to a complete freedom
and resurrection.
Because the arm of Yahweh, the one
who is a mighty warrior, who brought Israel out of Egypt with strength and had
brought freedom, has not died out but continues outstretched to free with might
all those who are in a situation of slavery and victims of oppression and
condemnation.
The word “Exodus” tells us that
the God of Moses is the one who breaks all our deaths which kills us. He breaks
the slavery of Egypt, the circle of death, the sea which threatens us. He
breaks the death of lack of bread or meat or water, or the seven nations of
giants who were occupying the Promise Land. The God of Moses opens a way
through the desert which we pass from Egypt into the Promised Land, from
darkness to light, from slavery to freedom, from death to life. Therefore, this
word tells you that God is love, and is inviting you to trust him once more in
order to realize your complete happiness in life.
Is this true? If you want to prove
whether this thing is true, then try to taste this word “Exodus” and see if it
is good and nice to your taste. See the fruit of this word which has been
realized in the lives of those people who started trusting God. Why then don’t
you trust in God today? What is it that stops you today from being happy? The
fact is that you think that the bread, the meat, the water that God is
promising you will not arrive and will not come, because you think that this is
death which destroys you forever. You think that this is your end, your death,
and that is why you do not trust nor hope in someone who may love you, who is
more powerful than the sea and the Pharaoh?
This word stirs up all of us to
trust in God, who is love, and who acts with might in favor of those of us who
are destroyed by death which enslaves us. Who is able to trust and take upon
himself this Word? Who truly fulfills this word and abandons himself to God in
every event of death without rebelling?
Jesus Christ, the new Moses,
fulfilled this word. He was the only one, the one who is greater than Moses
(Heb, 3-4), who has accepted this word. In him the Paschal Seder, the Passover
became flesh, was enfleshed. When the cross was put in front of him, Christ did
not doubt God. He did not say: This cross in the proof that God does not love
me. This cross, which for you can be a cancer, or any event of death, Jesus Christ
in front of this cross did not rebel against the will of God. He is the only
one who has fulfilled this word, and he gives this word “Exodus” to us
fulfilled, because Israel, who is you and me, has always been unfaithful to
this word. Because f this, since no one is able to fulfill it, God gives this
word freely fulfilled in his Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus goes down to Egypt to
fulfill the Scriptures which says: ”Out of Egypt I have called my son” (Mt.
2:15; Nu. 23:22; Ho. 11:1). In the same way that Israel, after leaving Egypt,
had to cross the sea, Jesus Christ is also taken into the River Jordan in order
to be baptized. Later on, like the people of Israel, Jesus Christ was also tempted in the desert. Israel spent forty years in the desert, Jesus
too was tempted in the wilderness for forty days and nights. The three
temptations which Jesus underwent ate the same ones which the Israelites had
suffered in the desert: these are the temptations for bread, for idols, and for
miracles.
Jesus Christ who became man like
you and me, had the same temptations that all men have, the same temptations
which the Israelites had in the desert. Each one will fall into the same
temptation as Jesus Christ and the Israelites had fallen in the desert. All of
us have fallen and blasphemed God and thus worshipped the Evil One. We ascribed
the same glory and honor to our idols of money, of work and of affection the
same glory and honor which should have gone to God who did everything in his
power to bring us out of our slavery and oppression from the Evil One.
The first temptation: that of
bread. This means that we have first to secure and realize our economic needs,
the needs of our stomach always hungry and grumbling for feed. If we do not
have food, we are going to go hungry, our children will cry and we are all
going to die. What is important to us in life is to get and have much money in
order that we eat and live well without getting hungry. We should fight others
in order to secure our jobs and have enough money for food, to send our
children to a good school which will give them better jobs that will ensure
them more money and more food so that they will not feel hungry and die, or get
sick even again. Our God then is our stomach (Rom. 16:18, Ph. 3:19). Hilnga 1 Co.
6:13.
The second temptation is that of IDOLS,
the idols of money of work, and of affection and esteem, which are the gods of this
world (2 Co. 4:4; Satan, Hilnga Ep 2:2; Lk. 4:6; Jn. 12:31, 14:30; 16:11).
Idolatry is the worship of false gods.
According to Apostle Paul,
fornication or impurity in any of its forms, or promiscuity, coarseness, or
salacious talks and jokes, all these are wrong for you and is worshipping a
false god (Ep. 5:3-5). Jesus Christ also says that, “No one can be the slave of
two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or treat the
first with respect and the second with scorn. You cannot be the slave of God
and of money” (Mt. 5:24). Or what Paul enumerates as: people of immoral lives, idolaters,
adulterers, catamites, sodomites, thieves, usurers, drunkards, slanderers and
swindlers (1 Cor. 6:9). Or, “fornication, impurity, guilty passion, evil
desires and greed, which is the same thing as worshiping a false god, all this
is a sort of behavior that makes God angry (Col. 3:5-6), Or, “marriage is to be
honored by all, and marriages are to be kept undefiled, because fornicators and
adulterers wuill come under God’s judgment. Put greed out of your lives and be
content with whatever you have; God himself has said: I will not fail you or
desert you, and so we can say with confidence: with the Lord to help me, I fear
nothing: what can man do to me?” (Heb. 13:4-6). Or these words which Apostle
Paul also said: “Ehen self-indulgence is at work (which is worshipping yourself
as a god, looking for affection) the results are obvious: fornication, gross
indecency and sexual irresponsibility; idolatry and sorcery; feuds and wrangling,
jealousy, bad temper and quarrels; disagreements, factions, envy, drunkenness,
orgies and similar things” (Gal. 5:19-20).
Or, as in another part, Apostle
Paul says, “Until they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for a worthless
idol, for the images of mortal men and women, of birds, or quadropeds and
reptiles. That is why God left them to their own filthy practices and enjoyments
with which they dishonor their own bodies, since they have given up divine
truth for a lie and have worshipped and served creatures which have borrowed
lives instead of the creator who has the power to give life and health. That is
why God has abandoned them to degrading passions, why their women turned from
natural intercourse to unnatural practices and why their menfolk have given up
natural intercourse to be consumed with passion for each other, men doing
shameless things with men and getting an appropriate reward for their
perversion. In other words, since they refused to see it was rational to
acknowledge God, God has left them to their irrational ideas and to their
monstrous behavior. And so they are steeped in all sorts of depravity, rottenness,
greed and malice, and addicted to envy, murder, wrangling, treachery and spite.
Libelers, slanderers, enemies of God, rude, arrogant and boastful, enterprising
in sin, rebellious to parents, without brains, honor, love and pity. They know
what God’s verdict is: that those who behave like this deserve to die - and yet
they do it; and what is worse, encourage others to do the same” (Rom. 1:23-32).
These are all results of worshipping the idols of the world which are the false
gods.
The third temptation is that of MIRACLES.
This means that we ask for miracles always and refuse to accept our reality, whatever
it is. This temptation is telling us to have a control of everything, to know
everything, to have everything now and not tomorrow or the next day or next
week but today, now. How is it that God is good and yethe made me so ugly, so
poor, so weak, and so miserable? How can God do things without ever consulting
me? That is the sin of pride, that I have things which are not according to
what I desire or deserve to have. What I deserve are those things which I want
or desire, not those things which have been given me which I do not like.
Therefore, I always ask for the impossible, for some miracles to happen, so that those which are undesirable to me will
be removed in a hurry and fast.
“Ang tubig sa ilog,
kapag hinarang,
ay gagawa ng butas,
upang pilit makalabas.”
-
12 Abril 2000
No comments:
Post a Comment