From the Sunday Note, with additional thoughts:
Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said:
“Leaders of the people and elders:
If we are being examined today
about a good deed done to a cripple,
namely, by what means he was saved,
then all of you and all the people of Israel should know
that it was in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean
whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead;
in his name this man stands before you healed.
He is “the stone rejected by you, the builders,
which has become the cornerstone.” (Psalm 118:22)
There is no salvation through anyone else,
nor is there any other name under heaven
given to the human race by which we are to be saved.”
Acts 4:8-12, First reading, complete. Emphasis added.
Just what is “salvation”?
Peter uses “saved” to describe the crippled man who is now healed (detailed early in chapter 3). There was no baptism, no mention of the Holy Spirit. No promise made by the man. He simply turned toward Peter and John in hope—of something—and received healing, Peter told him, from Christ. This is not an obvious case, in popular religious terms, of a man “being saved.”
Salvation is used in the Old Testament to describe the Israelites’ escape from slavery to a land promised them by God. Salvation is used to describe the successful outcome of battles. With an extremely limited understanding of an afterlife, “salvation” generally meant the conditions for life itself, for life free from sickness or hunger or oppression by invaders. Salvation covered the conditions necessary to live life fully in the community (the larger family of families) Room to breathe, successful crops, marriage, a next generation of children, and the like. All peoples of that era realized they were only partly in control of whether these things happened in their lives—and all peoples turned to “gods” as another way to influence things in their favor. We can see how the categories of ‘king’ and ‘god’ might intermingle in their thoughts.
Israel’s God was unique in two ways. He insisted there were no other gods (though at first the Israelites, even the faithful ones, seemed to think that meant only “no other gods for you”). And He insisted that they must follow a serious moral code (unlike pagan gods and goddesses). Through a thousand years of rugged history, lessons learned the hard way and reiterated many times, Israelites gained a hope for and a clarity about a more definitive salvation, to be brought by a Savior, the Anointed One, a King-Savior. From the later book of Maccabees, we know they had grasped a much clearer idea of the possibility of everlasting salvation for individuals, at least for those who kept faith with God.
Jesus is the welcomed Anointed King (as well as the less-welcomed Suffering Servant!) who brings the fulfillment and enlargement of all previous understandings of salvation. Salvation, in its totality, now means union with Christ leading to transformation and everlasting life in a New Creation.
If we commit to Christ and are baptized, if we choose to unwrap and work with the new life given to us in our baptism and fed by our Communions, we will find our salvation starting to unfold. In our second reading from John’s letter, he states:
“Beloved, we are God’s children now;
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is.”
1 John 3:2 from our second reading
The description of us as children is apt. A child is simply given life and only gradually comes to understand what that involves, what it means, the possibilities involved in it. So with us as adults who were simply given this new life in baptism—salvation is implicit in the original gift, but we unwrap it gradually as we walk through life toward a conclusion that will be definitive, for good or not. As adults we are offered the privilege of unwrapping our gifts consciously.
If we will.
For further reflection:
To expand one thought–“If we commit to Christ, … we will find our salvation starting to unfold.” Our salvation will not be 100% complete until after the resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgement, and the New Creation. However, the unfolding of that finality begins for those who commit to Christ here and now, in this life as we develop and grow in Christ. We see in the stories of our Christian predecessors so much growth in so many areas of their relationship in and with Christ (with Him himself, and with others of his brothers and sisters who are also ours) all throughout their lives. New depths in prayer, new insights into Scripture, into people, into situations. New levels of determination and of gentleness, of patience and of kindness, and of all the other Christian strengths. The Holy Spirit calls us to become the best possible person we can be. That is quite likely to be more than we can imagine right now.
Take one step.
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