Sunday July 13, 2008: Isaiah 55:10-11; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-23 or 13:1-9

In today’s second reading, St. Paul continues his teaching concerning life in the Holy Spirit. Paul discusses the theme of our adoption in Jesus Christ. His understanding of adoption is different from the way we will understand adoption today in our society. An adopted child today has access to his biological family when he has reached certain age. In some instances, the child continues to have communication with his or her family. Adoption in the Greco-Roman world was a total separation from the previous family. All ties with the person’s family were completely severed once the person was adopted and no longer had access to his original family. The person in a sense took on a new life in which his debts of the previous life cannot be carried over to this new life. It wasn’t uncommon to have people take on a new name to signify their new personality. For St. Paul, this is what our adoption in Christ Jesus means.

By virtue of our baptism in Christ, we are adopted sons and daughters of God. As Jesus Christ tells us in the Gospel of John 1:12, “But to those who accept him he gave power to become children of God.” Our baptism empowers us to become the children of God and we can rightly cry “Abba, Father.” Our adoption eliminates our previous debts, debts that were paid by the precious blood of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary. We can now embrace a new life free from corruption and sin. That is rightly the reason at baptism we take a new name to signify that we have become a new creation in Christ.

We are a privileged people to receive this special gift from God. We are privileged because we are the “first fruits of the Spirit.” What God is intending to accomplish in the whole of creation, he has chosen us as the first. The revelation which all of creation awaits with eager expectation, we have already experienced that revelation. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ and this we celebrate at every Eucharistic celebration. We have seen what the world have not seen – the Way, the Truth and the Life. We have been already set free from sin and corruption. All we wait for is the redemption of our bodies when we will truly unite with our heavenly Father in His/Our kingdom.

Given this rare privilege that we have, we must live truly as people who have hope. We must live in hope because what we have awaiting us is greater than whatever we experience in this world. The pains and sufferings of this world may overwhelm us and we begin to doubt God’s promises for us. We need to stand firm in faith knowing that the glory that is to be revealed to us is greater than the pains and sufferings of this world. These pains and sufferings are only temporal but the glory of God lasts forever. In his glory, there is righteousness, peace and Joy.

As first fruits of the Holy Spirit, we have an active role to play in God’s salvation of all creation. We need to be the face of Christ to all of creation by how we love. We must actively work to lead people away from the bondage of sin into the freedom of the children of God which we all have received. We have a lot of work cut out for us but it is easy if we live each day of our lives in the love of Christ and the love of neighbor. If we do this, then we are active agents in God’s revelation to all of his creation.