Saturday, April 18, 2015

God's Will: Our Redemption and our Freedom



In the Collect of today’s liturgy we pray: Set aside, O Lord, the bond of sentence written for us by the law of sin, which in the Paschal Mystery you canceled through the Resurrection of Christ your Son…   In a second prayer, we pray: O God, who willed that through the paschal mysteries the gates of mercy should stand open for your faithful, look upon us and have mercy, that as we follow, by your gift, the way you desire for us, so may we never stray from the paths of life…”  

As I prayed those prayers, the image of Peter and the apostles in prison, chained to the floor, surfaced in my mind.  “…during the night the angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison, led them out, and said, ‘God and take you place in the temple area, and tell the people everything about this life’”  (Acts.5: 17-26). 

That is what Jesus did for us on the cross and in His resurrection. The prison doors were opened for us. The chains that bound us to sin and death were shattered. We are being led out of our slavery  and put on the path that God desires of us, a path that leads to ever greater and greater freedom in the Spirit of God leading us to our ultimate destiny, eternal life.  In His great mercy, God has opened the gates  of heaven for us.   “Eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither  have entered into the heart of man [humankind] the things which God has prepared for them that love him,” Paul tells us in 1 Cor 2:9.

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