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Submitting to the will of God; on the surface this sounds easy enough. To follow the will of God for one’s life sounds like the right thing to do. After all, if one truly loves God, then it only makes sense to want to do what makes God happy. In today’s readings we heard two different voices speak of doing God’s will; the voice of the psalmist and St. Paul.
The Psalmist declares, “I love to do your will, O my God; your law is deep in my heart.” In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul describes himself as being “called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God”. Both of these statements sound easy enough until one digs deeper into what it means to do the will of God.
The psalmist is connecting obedience to the law with doing God’s will. For many Jews, this is still the requirement for living one’s life in the will of God. As Christians, we believe that the law was given not only to help us to live a life pleasing to God, but also to show us how difficult it is to live under the law. It is because we struggle so with adhering to God’s laws that we cling to Jesus for our salvation. In Christ, we are able to fulfill the requirements of the law, because Jesus’ atoning work on the cross freed us from bondage to the law.
Some say that this frees us to sin, but it is just the opposite. As St. Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians in chapter ten, beginning with verse twenty-three, “All things are lawful,’ but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful’, but not all things build up. Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other.” What a concept! What do you suppose would happen if we lived our lives for others instead of just ourselves? Just as Christ lived on this earth for our sakes, we too are to live our lives as imitators of Christ; seeking not our own desires, but living as models of Christ’s love for others.
Thomas A’ Kempis writes in his book The Imitation of Christ how to live a Christ like life. One of the examples he gives is that of a man who feared that he would fall away from living his life according to God’s will. The story goes like this:
“There was once a certain anxious man who, wavering often between fear and hope and exhausted with grief, prostrated himself in prayer in church before the altar. Turning these things in his mind, he said: ‘Oh, if only I knew that I shall persevere.’ On the spot, he heard the divine answer in his own heart: ‘What if you knew this? What would you do? Do now what you would do then, and you will be very safe.’ Soon after, having been comforted and strengthened, he gave himself up to God’s will, and his anxious wavering stopped. He no longer feared for his future; instead, he sought to know God’s will for accomplishing today’s good works.”
As we learned last week, Jesus was revealed as the Lamb of God when He submitted to baptism for our sakes. The manifestation of Jesus as the Christ came as a direct result of Jesus’ willingness to live His life in the will of God. Baptism was Jesus’ first step or good work towards the cross as our Redeemer. It was Jesus’ public commitment to all that His life no longer was His, but the Father God’s as the long awaited Messiah.
In the gospel reading for today from John, we are told of how Jesus’ first two disciples came to Him. It happened the day after Jesus had been baptized. John writes:
“The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi, (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day.”
Jesus’ first two disciples were already following God’s will for their lives. We know this because as soon as they were told by John the Baptist, their Teacher, that Jesus was the One for whom they had been waiting, they immediately left John to follow the Christ. Then one of them Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother sought out his brother Simon to tell him, “We have found the Messiah”…By being open to the will of God, a domino effect took place.
First, John testifies that Jesus is the Christ when the Spirit of God reveals it to him while he is baptizing Jesus. Then John shares this knowledge with two of his own disciples when Jesus passes by them the next day. They immediately leave John to follow Jesus. They spend at most a good portion of the day with Jesus. Then one of them goes and finds his brother to share the good news of their discovery of the Messiah with him.
No big news story had to hit the papers or the media. No live interview of Jesus on the nightly news took place. It was the simple sharing of the good news from one person to another. Even today, we too can share the good news of Christ with people in our lives. It is a simple willingness to be open to the movement of the Spirit in our lives. This is what happens when we are willing to let go and let God lead us.
It is a matter of making ourselves available for God no matter where He may lead us. For some this can be a rather challenging idea in which to follow through. Yet, St. Paul reminds us that it is not of our strength on which we depend, but knowing that it is Christ who strengthens us to do the will of the Father God. St. Paul assures us in his first letter to the Corinthians with these words, “He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
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