Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus
Today we have crossed 1 month into the New Year and today we are celebrating the dedication of baby Jesus to the Temple of God in Jerusalem. Today's Gospel reading is from the book of Luke 2:22-40. I would like to bring forth a few points that has been going around in my head on understanding this portion of the Gospel.
In the Old Testamental laws that were provided by God Almighty, in the book of Leviticus (Chapter 12) whenever a woman bears child, she would be unclean to enter the house of God and on the eighth day, the male child would undergo circumcision. And after forty days the mother and the child are declared to clean to come and enter the temple of God. In the Orthodox tradition, the mother and the child are specially blessed on the fortieth day. As per the old laws, the family had to offer an unblemished lamb to be offered to God. If the mother is not able to bring an unblemished lamb, then she brings a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.
In the current scenario, the baby is brought and dedicated to God Almighty during the baptism of the infant. The baptism holds two meanings:
1. The baby is dedicated to God, who is the giver of all life. We all are in that sense dedicated to God on our baptism and we are to meant to be His instruments in this world.
2. Through baptism, we are bought into the Christian fellowship, so that our faith in Jesus Christ might develop such that we are dead to the pleasures of this world and are made new creation in the image of God.
Through baptism, we are brought into the fold of believers who will help us to realize our shortfalls and help us to develop our faith in Jesus such that we lose our sinful selves and we are called "to be saints" (1 Corinthians 1:2). First of all, who is a saint? We normally describe a person as a saint because of his unusually Godly character. We have given the title of saints to people who had a Godly character in them and who were close to God. But I found it very astounding that St. Paul addresses the Corinthian church as people who are set apart to be saints. Now I will tell you the reason why.
The Corinthian church, if you look at them from today's point of view, they had many many faults in them. They were really messed up, both theologically and morally. They were proud and fractious; they tolerated gross immorality, sued each other in court, flaunted their freedom in Christ, abused the observance of the Lord's Supper, misunderstood the purpose of spiritual gifts, and were confused about the future resurrection of believers. Yet when writing to them, Paul addresses them as "saints" (2 Corinthian 1:1) or as those "called to be saints" (1 Corinthians 1:2). I clearly did not understand why Paul of all people would address the people of Corinth as saints in such a situation. But as I read his letters to the other churches, I found that this form of address was a favorite of Paul's address and reference to the believers (for example, Romans 1:7; 16:15; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Ephesians 1:1; Philippians 1:1; 4:21-22 and Colossians 1:2).
The answer to this lies in the meaning of the word as it is used in the Bible. The Greek word for saint is hagios, and it refers not to one's character but to a state of being. Its literal meaning is "one who is separated unto God." In this sense, every believer - even the most ordinary, and the most immature - is a saint. The actual wording of St. Paul's address in 1 Corinthians is to "those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints" (1:2). Hence a saint is simply someone who is separated for God. Every true believer, through his/her baptism has been separated or set apart by God for God. Christ Himself through His death on the cross and gave Himself for us, redeemed us from all lawlessness to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works (comparing Titus 2:14 and 1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
Thus through our dedication to God through baptism, every new believer has been set apart by God, separated unto God to be transformed into the likeness of His Son, Jesus Christ. In this sense, every believer is a saint - a person separated from his old sinful way of life and set apart by God to increasingly glorify God as his life is transformed.
In the biblical sense of the term, sainthood is not a status of achievement and character, but a sense of being - an entirely new condition of life brought about by the Spirit of God. We don't become saints by our actions. We are made saints by the immediate supernatural action of the Holy Spirit alone who works this change deep within our inner being so that we do, in fact, become new creations in Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:17). This change of state is described prophetically in Ezekiel 36:26: "I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."
It would have been nice to end the story here, because above paragraphs might suggest a saint is someone who no longer sins. But that is not true. If we are rather honest to ourselves, we know that nearly every waking hour we sin in thought, word and deed. Even our best deeds are stained with impure motives and imperfect performance. Why is there a disconnect between what god has seemingly promised and what we experience in our daily lives? The answer to this can be found in Galatians 5:17, which says, "The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep from doing the things you want to do." This guerrilla warfare between the flesh and the Spirit described in Galatians 5:17 is fought daily in the hearts of every Christian. So Paul begins his first letter to the Corinthian church by addressing them as "those sanctified (set apart by God) in Christ Jesus, called to be saints (set-apart-ones)". Then he spends the remainder of his letter vigorously exhorting them to act like saints. That is, be in your behavior what you are in your state of being. So although the word saint basically describes our new state of being as people separated unto God, it carries with it the idea of responsibility to live as saints in our daily lives.
So in the future, remind yourself when we gossip or become impatient, or get angry, that we are to conduct ourselves as saints because we are a people who are set apart by God for God, to His wish in this land that He has provided us to till and toil.
May the grace of our Almighty Father, and love of His Son Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all during this week and in all the days to come.
My humble request is to keep this sinful servant in your prayers.
Your views and comments are always welcome and you may please mail them to jobin.george 2012@gmail.com
Your brother in Christ Jesus
Jobin George
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