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The Catholic Telegraph
February 15, 2002Lent is a season of particularly intense spiritual effort in the life of the Church. Before anything else, it is a time of final preparation for those who will become members of God’s people through baptism at Easter. But it is also a time for penance and change of heart for those who are already members of the Church. In addition to that, Lent provides, especially in its closing weeks, an orientation toward the celebration of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection.
The gospel readings, especially in year A, have been chosen to illustrate the various facets of conversion and initiation. The Old Testament readings give us an annual overview of God’s dealings with humanity and the first chosen people before the coming of Christ. The second readings, our live letters, serve to illustrate one or both of the other two readings.
This Sunday’s second reading is clearly intended as a commentary on the first reading. In the first reading we hear about the sin of Adam and Eve. In the second reading Paul teaches us about the implications of that sin and about our salvation from it in Christ. (Almost all of Paul’s letter to the Romans is concerned somehow with salvation. Romans is a formal overview of Paul’s teaching about this fundamental aspect of our faith, a survey course addressed to a local church he had not yet been in personal touch with. We’ll be hearing a lot from Romans later this year.)
Our reading begins with an explanation of the meaning of what Adam had done. Adam deliberately disobeyed God’s command. He sinned. This sin destroyed the special relationship that Adam and Eve had enjoyed with God. It killed it and so brought into the world not only sin but death as well, both physical and spiritual death. Everybody participates in this death not only because of their descent from Adam but also because of their own individual sinfulness.
In a short digression, Paul now points out that those who are not aware of God’s directives, e.g., people who lived before God gave the Law to Moses, are not technically guilty of "sin" (which involves deliberate disobedience to a command) but are still subject to death that Adam’s sin brought about.
Then Paul begins to talk about the undoing of Adam’s sin by lining up parallels and contrasts between Adam and Christ. Sin and death entered the world through one man, Adam. Grace and new life entered the world through one man, Christ. But there is a difference between what Adam brought and what Christ brought. Adam was involved in one sin which brought condemnation to many. Christ had to deal with many sins (the sins of all the world, in fact) in order to restore life in God. In Adam we have sin and the destruction of God’s life in us. In Christ we have reconciliation and new life. What Christ did was greater than what Adam did because Adam, through disobedience, brought destruction and slavery while Christ, through obedience, brought new life and freedom.
Paul’s message is an important one as we begin the observance of Lent. It is a simple message, but one that we all have to assimilate. The message is that we all need salvation and that salvation comes through Christ Jesus.
Those not yet baptized need to be incorporated into the Church in order to share the saving life of Christ, the life which constitutes salvation. Those who are already in the community need to refocus their awareness of their ongoing need of life in Christ and of their ongoing vulnerability to the effects of sinfulness that remain in them. We all need to be aware that our liberation from what Adam inflicted on us, i.e., a state of false independence and phoney self-sufficiency, can only come through God’s gift and that that gift has been provided for us through the life-long obedience of Christ to His Father’s will. (Those who have not had an opportunity to know Christ can be saved, too, but even their salvation comes through Christ.)
If we forget about our need for salvation, or begin to act as if we can provide salvation for ourselves, we are headed right back into the valley of solitude and death that Adam entered when his sin got him expelled from Eden. This is why we need a season of Lent each year: to remind us of who and what we are, where we have come from, and where God wants us to be headed.
Salvation and the need for salvation are among the most central and basic aspects of our Christian faith. They provide the rationale for the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity, for His life and death. They enable us to have some understanding of why God has provided us with revelation, the sacraments, the loving support and encouragement of our fellow Christians. Salvation and the need for salvation provide the justification for our struggle to enter the heavenly kingdom where those who share Christ’s life will life together forever.
If we don’t understand salvation and the need for salvation, we can’t understand redemption. In fact, we can’t understand very much at all.
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Conversation Question.
How do I experience a need for salvation?
How do I experience salvation in Christ?
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