Living in Christ Jesus

In today’s first reading, Colossians 3: 1-11, St. Paul tell us exactly what it looks like if we are truly  living a life in Christ Jesus, if we truly have died and risen with Christ. If so, we no longer live lives of deceit, immorality, impurity, evil desires or greed.  Having been clothed in a robe of salvation, having put on Christ, we are now striving to be honest, first with ourselves and then with others. If self-honesty is nonexistent, so, too, is honesty with others. Self-honesty implies the humility to acknowledge my wrongdoing, my weaknesses and my vulnerabilities.  With whom do I do that?

To live a life in Christ means that we are rejecting demands that are based solely on greed, that reference all things to “what am I getting out of this,” that are only self-serving, that basically foster pride and self-aggrandizement.  We are putting in check our tendency to become easily annoyed, angered and frustrated.  We are striving to avoid occasions of sin, acknowledging when and where and with whom we are most vulnerable to Satan’s snares and avoiding those situations and/or persons.  In and with and through Christ Jesus we are seeking “what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God,” as we are very much aware that when Christ, our life, appears, we, too, “will appear with him in glory.”  We are on a journey, not of this world, but of the world hereafter, where our true home resides.