Fr Mark Schultz
Dear Friend,
What a joy it has been to have had the opportunity to write to you and share a word or two of the Good News of Jesus Christ in these Daily Bread letters over the past few years! This is my last Daily Bread to you, Beloved, but certainly not the last time we communicate one with another: it’s my hope that we continue to discern each other as part of the Body of Christ in which we partake, to which we cleave, by which we’re renewed and re-made in the Eucharist; and that we continue to offer each other to God in prayer through Christ, in whom there is no East nor West nor South nor North, and in whom yesterday, today, and tomorrow are all one in Love. Beloved, you will always be in my prayers and in my heart, and it is a great and abiding delight to continue to pray for you and with you as we share together in the endless and deathless life of Jesus our Lord!
In our Office Gospel this morning, our Gospeller gives us an image of this life which might serve us beautifully as a model for discipleship. Jesus, we are told, is the sort of person who proclaims justice (which is to say, proclaims the liberating word of God that unbinds the captive), who isn’t one to quarrel or belligerently shout people down (which is, in part, to say that he will not put God’s mercies and God’s promises up for debate but will proclaim them with joy and love), who doesn’t break the wounded or weary the already-exhausted (which is to say, he will hold and heal his wounded people and will give them a new, divine fire in and from which to be ablaze), who will “bring justice to victory.” By God’s grace, we can do the same: proclaim the liberating word with a peacefulness the world cannot comprehend, eschewing belligerence and bellicosity while trusting in the goodness of God and God’s promises; we can compassionate each other and this wounded world, really love and lift-up each other, and nurture, treasure, amplify the fire in others, even passing along what fire we’ve been given to those whose candles might be sputtering, trusting God to kindle the triple flame of faith, hope and love according to God’s good grace…
…but what is it, Beloved, to “bring justice to victory” and how can we follow in our Lord’s steps in this regard? There’s a lot going on here in this little bit of text that’s somewhat obscured by the translation of the Greek word “krisin” as “justice.” In most other contexts in which it’s used, the word is translated as “judgment” or even “sentence.” So the sense here is of Jesus as executor of the Divine Will, bringing the judgment of God to its perfect conclusion…and not as an arbitrary human judge, meting out punishments, but as the gentleness of love, restoring, renewing, healing. It’s important to remember, Beloved, the judgment of God on us and our world revealed fully in the Cross of Jesus, the Harrowing of Hell, and in the Resurrection: it is an end to sin and death, and the beginning of Love and Life, a bright light shining into the very depths and darknesses of the human experience and leading us into an unthinkable brilliance that we’re called and empowered to become. It is a re-making of the human adventure into a divine ecstasy of joy in the endlessly radiant luster of Love.
To bring justice to victory in this way is something only Jesus can do…and he does it by his Life, Death, and Resurrection; he does it in the Sacraments; he does it in the work and witness of the Church. Which is also to say: he does it, Beloved, in you, in your life—he makes his victory yours by grace through faith.
O Beloved! Dear one! It is my ongoing prayer that Jesus perfect his victory in you, that you receive it from his own hands as your own, that it live in you as a living flame of love, that in that light, you may see light…and in seeing what you are in, through, and with Jesus Christ, in receiving what you are from Jesus, you may become what you see and what you receive.
Under the Mercy,
Fr Mark+