Faith, Works, and the Cross

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters,
if someone says he has faith but does not have works?
Can that faith save him?”

James 2:14

What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to be a follower of Christ? Go to Church, yes. Pray, yes. Sometimes we may be tempted to think that pious acts of devotion may be all we need to secure a seat in heaven, but that is not so. In fact, none of us are “guaranteed” a place in heaven. It is our hope that by living a life that is blameless in the eyes of God that we might be in heaven, but we can never earn that spot or pray our way into heaven.

When I say we cannot pray our way into heaven, I am not saying that prayer is useless. I am saying that prayer is useless if there is nothing behind those words we say or recite. Do our hearts match our lips? In his letter St. James tells us that faith without works is dead. There are some of us out there who believe that as long as we are baptized, “we are saved.” Sorry to break it to you, but that’s not the case. Only Jesus can save us. Yes, God became man, dwelt among us, taught and preached, performed miracles, suffered, died, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sent the Holy Spirit, but that does not mean that as long as we confess we our lip, “I believe all that,” we are automatically saved. Jesus told His disciples that those who truly wanted to follow Him must “deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me.” This cannot be done without faith. Faith and works are inseparable. Jesus did not just say “I love you;” He showed it on the Cross. Jesus did not simply believed and agreed to His Father’s will; He carried it out. Faith without works is dead.

In order for us to carry our crosses, we must have faith. Otherwise why would I even carry a cross??? If there is no God and Jesus was just a fable or myth, people over the ages would not have given up their lives in bearing witness and testimony to this faith. If all of this was just a story, then you and I must leave. But because it is the truth, our hearts are moved. Because our hearts are moved by faith and the works of those who have gone before us, we have the courage and strength to pick up and carry our crosses.

My brothers and sisters, we cannot be content with simply going to Church on Sunday and going back to our uncharitable lives on Monday. When we go to Church, we bring our crosses that have weighed us down. And having been renewed and nourished by the Eucharist, by the blood that dripped down from the Cross, we leave Church carrying our crosses proudly knowing that we do not carry our crosses alone. Brothers and sisters, may our crosses be avenues of healing and encounter for those who come our way, and may our carrying of the cross by a sign of faith and hope to all. May the faith we profess on our lips be moved by the gratitude and love we experience in the depths of our hearts, and propel us into loving service for one another.

Opened and Freed

“He took him off by himself away from the crowd.
He put his finger into the man’s ears
and, spitting, touched his tongue;
then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him,
‘Ephphatha!’— that is, ‘Be opened!’”

Mark 7:33-34

The prophet Isaiah prophesied that the mute will speak and the deaf will hear, and in the gospel of Mark we are told that Jesus opened the ears of a deaf man and freed him from his speech impediment. Here we can see that Jesus indeed is the Lord of which Isaiah prophesied. If we look closely at the gospel passage, we can see a lot of specific details revolving the healing miracle. Jesus took the man aside, touched him, looked up, groaned, and spoke. Let’s take a look at each one of these.

Jesus was alone with the man; we must have a personal relationship with the Lord, for only then are we able to truly be a part of the body of Christ. It is our unique individual relationship with the Lord that we paradoxically share. Although it is individual, it is also universal and communal. The Lord touched him: have we allowed the Lord to personally touch us in our hearts? Our Lord strives and yearns to touch us and to be with us, but do we let Him? Now, I’m not saying that Jesus is going to open up the clouds, come down, and shake our hands, but He will touch us in prayer, in the sacraments, and in our encounters with one another. Do we make time in our daily lives for these moments?

When Jesus looked up, He was reaching out to His Father and Our Father, for Jesus does nothing on His own. All that He does is what the Father wills. So, Jesus is always praying for us and interceding for us to the Father. He’s cheering us on! When we hear the word groaning, we may think of the Holy Spirit, and so like looking up, this groaning reminds us that Jesus is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and that all that He does is the work of the Trinity. Finally, Jesus spoke to the man, saying “Be opened!” At that the man’s ears were opened and he was able to speak plainly. Jesus wants to heal us, but we must let Him. There’s a scene in C. S. Lewis’s “The Great Divorce,” where a ghost with a lizard on his shoulder is asked if he’d like the lizard to be removed, for the lizard was always whispering things in his ear, preventing him from getting into heaven. The ghost said yes and so the Angel proceeded to kill the lizard. However, when this happened the ghost felt a burning sensation and wanted the Angel to stop. Getting rid of the lizards in our lives is not always pleasant, but the Lord wants nothing more than for us to “be opened” and so be in communion with Him and the Father and the Holy Spirit. However, He will not do anything that we do not want.

The man in the Gospel passage encountered Our Lord and was open to His saving actions in his life. As a result, his ears were opened and his speech impediment was removed. It was not pretty. The man had spit on him and his ears and tongue were touched. It was not comfortable. But he allowed this purifying act to take place because he had faith that great good and healing will come from it. And guess what? It did. Jesus wants to do the same for us. Will we let Him?

The Help

“God Himself is my help.”

Ps. 54:6

Often when we hear of “the help” we think of a helper, a maid, a servant, or a housekeeper. The psalmist says that God is his help, but he can’t mean that God is his housekeeper, can he? God is not a helper or a servant, rather He is the almighty God; however, He really took on that role and became that, didn’t He? God became man, God took on our human nature so that we can participate in the divine life. So, God is not help in the sense that He helps us shoulder some of the weight but that God is THE help. Just as Jesus said He is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life, He is also the Help. He is the Help who sustains us, leads us, guides us, and quite frankly keeps us in existence. Without Him we would not be here.

So, the psalmist sings of God as his help. With God as his help, how can anything go wrong? How can any problem remain unresolved? With God as our help, we can be sure that we will never be left stranded or abandoned. Who is God to you?