November 18, 1990

About the Gospel

      In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

     To many, the Gospel is almost blasphemously presented as a book of God's terrible judgment, of the Lord's demands; but how far this image is from the living feeling that the Gospel evokes in those who read it for the first time!

     When one approaches the Gospel from the depths of confusion, sin or sorrow, it opens up as a book of joy and hope: joy that the Lord is among us, not distant, not terrible, but dear, His own, clothed in human flesh, knowing from His personal experience what it means to be human; and the hope that on every page the Lord demands of us that we be worthy of the greatness of our humanity, demands that we do not dare to be below our dignity and level, does not allow us to become less than a man – although we sin so often, and are unworthy of both ourselves and Him. What hope is there in the fact that Christ came to save sinners and call them to repentance, that He lived and died for sinners, that His preaching was addressed to them; and what a revelation of God in this image of Christ, the incarnate Son of God!

     The God of the Old Testament, the God of the ancient religions, was an incomprehensible God, a God awesome, and, in His holiness, an inaccessible God. And so in the Gospel God is revealed, accessible and simple – but at what a cost! He became a man and through this gave Himself over to the power of all earthly wickedness and unrighteousness. He gave Himself to be torn to pieces and to destruction; out of love for us, He wanted to be as vulnerable as we are, as helpless and defenseless as we are, as contemptible as we are in the eyes of those who believe only in strength and success.

      That's how God revealed Himself to us. And He revealed to us that there is no such depth of fall, confusion and fear, and terror into which He has not descended before us, so that if we fall into it, we would not find ourselves alone. In the Garden of Gethsemane, in agony and terror, He met not His death, but ours. And throughout His life, He was with just those people who needed God to come to them, because they had lost the way to Him. Here is the God in Whom we believe, here is the God Who, with the love of the Cross and the exultant, solemn love of the Resurrection, has redeemed us, and has revealed to us the greatness of man and our calling. Therefore, let us live worthy of the calling to which we are called, rejoicing that God is with us! Amen.

November 1975