Friday last week, we heard a presentation reflecting on the Lenten season. Particularly, we meditated on 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2, which says:
“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” 
I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”
As an ambassador of Christ, I am wanting, I know. I have been not so good in representing Himself. I have been so self-reliant which defeats the dependency to the Father that Jesus portrayed when He was here on earth. As long as I am hurting no one, I thought doing things on my own is okay.
But am hurting myself.
Yes, I realize that now. Whenever I turn away from what brings me life—the only Person who could bring me life—and try to do things my way, hoping things that worked for me then, the familiar patterns I embraced whether to feel secure or important, will still continue to be useful for me. I have to let them go or I would not learn to trust in the One who love me most and learn that He really does. This would mean greater focus on my interior life and my relationship with Him. Greater exercise of prayer even when it seems like there’s no one there because faith compels me to believe that He is with me even when it doesn’t seem so.
“He knew no sin”
That verse made me think and ask, “If You knew have no personal knowledge of sin, how could you empathize with us who are riddled with all wrongdoings? How could You know the burden of sin and its consequences when You never sinned?”
“God made Him to be sin for us”
It means that Jesus became a member of this sinful race, though he sinned not. As I pondered on this, I began to see that even when Jesus did not sin, He must have experience being sinned against—big time! Human as we are, it is in those moments when people sin against us big time that we tend to take on vows—self-protective oaths we promise ourselves—to deliver ourselves from such hurt and to defend ourselves from further hurt. In other words, we try to become our own saviors, isn’t it?
It can take the form of walling others out, of ruthless ambition, of taking things (and even people) under control, of endless leisure, of drowning in pleasure, etc. It can be as subtle as simply being nice to everyone to please everyone and no one will be angry anymore. Or be a pain in the neck so that no one will come close enough to hurt you. In the end, we haven’t really saved ourselves but enslaved ourselves to fear instead. And we fear that we will be found out sooner or later. That kind of life is no life at all but a kind of living death. For the wages of sin is death.
“…so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. “
What exactly is the righteousness of God? Jesus in His human nature and with such divine power must have been very tempted to simply will the death of all His enemies—of all those who revile, rebuked, ridiculed, ripped Him of His clothes and His dignity… “If you are the Son of God…” the devil never left Him, I am sure.
Do we not have the same temptation as well? If I am truly a child of God, if God really loves me, this could not be happening to me. And then we take things into our own hands. That’s when sin comes in. That’s the difference between us and Jesus. Jesus trusted even in the point of death that He was able to defeat it and in defeating death He also defeated fear.
Our greatest fear that usually gets us to sin is that nobody really cares. Because of all the sins done against us, it is easy to conclude and operate in the assumption that that is true. Beneath every singular longing is such fear lurking behind.
That is why Jesus had to come, give us the evidence that that isn’t so. That even when the whole world seem to turn against us like the way He endured, even when it seems all is lost, even when there seems to be no one left standing beneath our own crosses let alone bear our crosses with us… even when there is misery and suffering and no one hears our cries… no one sees the pain, the tears, the sweat and blood… God knows. God cares. God turns evil into good in the end.
So, what is the righteousness of God? I believe that means MERCY. It is awfully hard to say “I forgive” and be merciful when I cannot trust God loves me and be utterly convinced about it in my bones. It is by far easier to speak curses and negativities and think only of oneself amidst our hurts. But the way of the cross is the path of righteousness that God showed us through Jesus.
“we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain”
Everything is grace, St. Therese said that before. Everything that has happened has been filtered through God’s love for us. Not easy to accept amidst sinfulness. But when sin abounds, grace abounds even more, right? So there is still grace, there will always be grace. However, God can do so much only as much as we cooperate. That is, as much as we can trust Him to lead us along valleys of tears and darkness—along our own stations of the cross; so that in the end, we no longer fear but free to fully give ourselves to Him and become as Mercy Himself.
