Readings: Is 42:1-4, 6-7; Acts 10:34-38; Lk 3:15-16, 21-22
In the Gospel reading today, we hear about the two greatest men ever to live: our Lord, Jesus Christ and St. John the Baptist. We know Jesus is God and St. John the Baptist was chosen by God for the mission to which he was called. His being chosen was not something that came after years of living a holy life but, as we know, his conception was miraculous and foretold by the Archangel Gabriel.
I begin this way because on the surface it would seem to contradict what we read in the second reading today where St. Peter says God shows no partiality. When an Archangel is sent to proclaim your conception and the Holy Spirit appears in the form of a dove descending upon Jesus while the voice of the Father is heard proclaiming Him to be the beloved Son, it certainly appears to demonstrate partiality.
We first must look at the statement of St. Peter. His reference is not that God has called some people to specific missions, but that anyone who fears the Lord and acts uprightly is acceptable to the Lord. In other words, although God certainly showed partiality to the Israelites, even calling them the Chosen People, our Lord pointed out several instances where pagans and foreigners demonstrated far greater faith than the people of Israel and were clearly accepted by God.
Jesus says the same thing about Christian people when He tells us that not everyone who calls Him “Lord” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. As Jesus made clear, and St. Peter reiterates, it is those who love the Lord and act uprightly who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. When we look back to the Jewish people, they were chosen by God and were brought into a covenant relationship with Him. This set them apart from everyone else in the world, but it also meant they were held to a higher standard than anyone else in the world.
Jesus is the New Covenant, as we see in the first reading, and we are baptized into Him. We have been chosen by God and elevated to a level that is beyond our wildest imagination. We have become sons and daughters of God, even more, because of our baptism, each of us has become an alter Christus, another Christ. This means God has shown partiality to you by choosing you and calling you to whatever mission He has for you. Like the Chosen People of old, you and I are now held to a higher accountability to love the Lord and to live in righteousness.
You and I are among the people from every race, nation, tribe, and tongue chosen by God. He does not show partiality in choosing only one group of people to be His own, but He has chosen people from every corner of the world to love and serve Him. He has also given these people the grace to be able to live good and holy lives. Like the Chosen People of old, even though they may have been incorporated into the covenant on the eighth day after their birth, they still had to make a choice with their own free will to live in accordance with their dignity.
Now it is our turn. Having been given the grace to live as children of God, we must choose to accept our dignity and live our lives according to that dignity. In other words, we must use our free will to choose God and to choose to love Him and serve Him. Other than these choices on our part, God has done everything else.
Jesus was baptized, not because He needed to repent and be forgiven of sin, but to prepare the way so we could be baptized and have our sins forgiven. Sometimes we fail to see the greatness of what God has done for us. Just think of what it means to have our sins forgiven or to have been chosen and made a son or daughter of God, a member of Jesus Christ. We hear about these truths so often that they may seem commonplace to us. These are the kind of extraordinary things God has done for us!
If we can accept these gifts and live our lives accordingly, we will not be giving lip service to our Lord. Instead, we will be living what we promised on the day of our baptism, that is, rejecting Satan and living our faith in the Lord. We will have the fear of the Lord, that is, we will love Him so much that we fear to offend Him. We will live truly righteous lives and we will be the recipients of God’s partiality because, living this way, we will be His beloved sons and daughters with whom He is well pleased.
Fr. Altier’s column appears regularly in The Wanderer, a national Catholic weekly published in St. Paul, Minn. For information about subscribing to The Wanderer, please visit www.thewandererpress.com.
