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The Catholic Telegraph
December 21, 2001All three readings for this fourth Sunday of Advent share a common element: they are all concerned with the house of David. In the first reading (Is. 7.10-14) Isaiah proclaims the future birth of a special child who would be a sign of God’s care for the Davidic dynasty of the skeptical King Ahaz. In the gospel reading (Mt. 1.18-24) the angel tells Joseph what arrangements he must make to guarantee that Mary’s child would be counted as a member of Joseph’s family, the house of David. In our second reading, Paul makes quite clear that Christ was fully human, "descended from David according to the flesh." Jesus’ humanity was not an appearance or a pose. He was completely one of us, born into a specific human family as each of us is.
Paul’s allusion to Jesus’ full humanity comes in the opening of his letter to the Romans. Usually the greeting in a letter would be brief. "Cicero sends greetings to Atticus." Paul’s introductions tend to be longer than this, but in Romans he outdoes even himself. Perhaps because he was not personally acquainted with the church of Rome he felt the need to be as clear as possible about himself, his teaching, and his attitude toward his addressees. We can almost imagine Paul’s stenographer struggling to keep up as Paul added one clarifying clause after another. The result is a single sentence that is seven verses long and almost incomprehensible. One wonders what the Romans made of it.
If this opening sentence were to be rewritten according to more contemporary stylistic tastes, it would be broken down into several sentences and might go something like this:
"Dear Romans, my name is Paul. I am an apostle, totally dedicated to Christ. God called me to proclaim His gospel.
This gospel has its foundation in the prophets of old and is concerned with God’s Son. In terms of His humanity, this Son was a descendant of David. Because of His death and resurrection and His sharing in the holiness of God, however, this Son has been identified as nothing less than the Son of God.
Through this Son I have been called to invite the Gentiles into an association of faith with Him. That includes you. You are beloved of Christ, called to belong to Him, gifted with a sharing in His holiness. May God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ continue to bless you!"
In these seven grandiose and complicated verses, Paul offers three characteristics of himself (slave [i.e. total devotee] of Christ, called to be an apostle, set aside for the gospel of God). He assures the Romans that he recognizes their standing as Christian community (three more characteristics: beloved of Christ, belonging to Him, called to share in His holiness). He gives an overview of salvation history and explains his own part in that history (to bring the Gentiles to faith). In the course of all this, Paul alludes to the major ideas that he will develop in the course of the rest of the letter: gospel, grace, apostolate, the commitment of faith, the importance of faith, the Scriptures, the role of Christ Jesus. It’s almost as if Paul were trying to put all sixteen chapters of the letter in the very first sentence!
Yet these opening verses of Romans have a single theme, a theme that is of fundamental importance for us. These verses are concerned with identity, the identity of Christ, of Paul, of the Romans - and of us Christian believers reading this live letter two thousand years after its delivery.
Who are we? We are sharers in the life of Christ, partakers of the divine life of the God-man who entered fully into human history on the first Christmas. Humanly speaking, He was an offshoot of the family to which David had belonged. The other side of Him, however, is nothing less than the life of God, a life that He translated into humanity and spent among us in order to bring us into lasting communication with His own godliness. We are "saints," not because of our spiritual achievements, but because of Christ’s generosity. That’s what Paul was. That’s what the first recipients of the letter to the Romans were. That’s what every Christian believer has been from the very beginning of the unfolding of God’s project of salvation.
The implications of that identity stretch from the first moment of creation to the last instant of time. They form the outline of the whole of human history. They color every aspect of our individual human existence. They determine the worth with which we begin our lives and the final fruitfulness with which we end them. Who are we? What are we? Nothing less than the extension of the life of the Son of God, all of us together forming one life in Him.
In these closely written and solemn verses with which Paul begins his letter to the Romans, he is sketching the meaning of salvation and also sketching us: called, set apart, obedient in faith, belonging to Jesus Christ, beloved of God, saints, all thanks to our incorporation into the son of David who was also Son of God.
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Conversation Questions.
In practice, how does my faith contribute to my identity?
How does the identity of Christ shape my life?
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