I Lay Down My Life Fourth Sunday of Easter John 10:11-18 Introductory Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for this opportunity to be with you in prayer. Open my heart to listen to your words of eternal life so that I may choose to follow you more closely on the path of true love. Petition: Lord, may I be faithful to your will in my life so that I can be an authentic Christian. 1. I Lay It Down. The Father entrusted Christ with a mission: Christ was to bring about our salvation through a life of unlimited self-giving, even to the point of giving his own life. Being God he could repay the Father for our sins; being man he could identity with our fallen humanity and raise its dignity so that we might become the Fathers children. Christ is the perfect bridge between fallen man and an infinitely holy God. His mission of bridging this chasm came about through freely accepting the will of the Father. There was nothing Our Lord would receive in return, and yet he was faithful even to the point of death. 2. On My Own. Jesus was not ordered to give himself for our sins. He offered himself. Freedom is best used when it embraces the will of God, whatever the cost might be. We have to remember that Jesus knew what lay beyond his successful preaching and his miracles: the road to Calvary. He spent many nights in prayer on the Mount of Olives in preparation for his hour. He foretold his fate to his disciples and continued forward towards this end despite their misunderstanding. And in the end, when the hour came, he proved faithful. When the hour of darkness sought him, he stepped forward to say, I am he. Christ never flinched in front of Gods will. He felt its weight. Sorrow flooded his heart. An easier path tugged at his humanity. But he proved that love is stronger than death, that true freedom can defeat sin and master it. 3. A Life of Love. Perhaps offering ourselves to God frightens us. What will he ask? What will I have to leave behind? Will I be able to do it? However, fear vanishes when we live out of love, like Christ. We need to remember that the Father asked him to die for us and look at the fruits this bore. Taking on our humanity, he left behind the splendor of his divinity and raised us to a new level. He did the impossible by bearing the weight of all our sins. He trusted in the Father to give him strength. We might be asked today to die more to our self-love, to leave behind a vice we have been struggling with, or to trust that with grace I can live a truly Christian life in a world hostile to Christianity. In the end, if we love Christ, we will not be frightened because he has already shown us the way and he has already conquered. Dialogue with Christ: Lord, give me the courage to be a faithful Christian, at all times and in all places, with whomever I meet and in whatever I say. Help me to give testimony to who you are. Resolution: I will offer one concrete act of self-mastery for love of Christ today. |