Fr Robert Hendrickson

"For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. "

Dear Friends in Christ,

Today we get this rather famous line from the Gospel of Matthew, "for those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it." It is stark, isn't it? It seems a Gospel for our day in some ways as it reminds us who and what we live for. It is not for a political party or for fame or wealth. We are called to live our life for the sake of Christ.

How many times have we found ourselves spinning after some goal or another and then, suddenly, we look around and wonder just what we are doing? We suddenly realize that the things we have set our sights on are not the things that truly give us meaning and hope. We are called to a focus on Christ that will tell us who we truly are for in the work of serving, loving, praying, giving, sharing, healing, forgiving, and blessing we will find that we are living the Way - we are following Christ in a way that lets others see him in us and lets us see him in ourselves.

That's the work we are baptized for. If you think to that language of the baptismal rite, the very first prayer we pray for those to be baptized is, "Deliver them, O Lord, from the way of sin and death." Then we pray, "Open their hearts to your grace and truth." This is followed by, "Fill them with your life-giving Spirit." Then we pray, "Keep them in the faith and communion of your holy Church." We then ask, "Teach them to love others in the power of the Spirit." Then we pray, "Send them into the world in witness to your love."

Finally, after those prayers, we ask "Bring them to the fullness of your peace and glory." That last prayer is that consummation, the fulfillment, of all of those other prayers - that we be brought to the fullness of peace and glory. Each of those prayers builds on the others and each is almost a step in the path to our lives being found. Each step is a way for us to lose our lives for the sake of Christ - a stepping stone to holiness.

Let's pray daily to avoid the way of sin and death, for open hearts, for grace and truth, to be filled with the Spirit, to hold fast to our faith, to love others, to witness to God's love, and finally for the peace and glory that is the fullness of the Lord - and is the reward for lives lived first and foremost for God who calls us out of the way of sin and death and into the Way of Love.

Yours in Christ,

Robert