Tuesday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 474

Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more,
so that, as sin reigned in death,
grace also might reign through justification
for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.


Sometimes we're bowled over by another dreadful news item: a mass killing somewhere; earthquake devastation of homes and lives; famine, disease, starvation, war. With the wonder of mass communications we're given samplings of all the world's sorrows each day, and many times a day. 
Some will challenge us with these tragedies. "How can you believe in God in the face of such horror?" Sometimes, when the dread strikes close to home, we feel the shock. 
A hospital chaplain once told me, "These kinds of crises will strengthen them or destroy them. It will always change them." 
Though Saint Paul's world was not enriched by daily doses of the evening news, he saw enough to suffer disenchantment. And yet he believed in God and the Infinite Goodness of God. He saw God's goodness especially in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. 

Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more.

This teaching is vital to our way of life. We do not hope merely for survival. We hope and expect and wait upon a Glory that will justify all the tragedy we have experienced and all the horrors we have ever heard of. 
In today's first reading Saint Paul contrasts the sin of Adam against the victory of Jesus. Adam's sin was a single incident -- a simple act of disobedience by one who hardly knew what he was doing -- and yet it brought calamity upon all creation -- man and beast alike. 

Jesus's obedience -- it stands to reason -- will not only undo Adam's sin; it will trigger a universal resurrection for all the Earth. 
All the sins of human kind are no more than a boy's digging on the beach. He works laboriously with shovel and pail, digging his hole. When the tide comes in the sand is covered and the hole disappears. When the tide recedes there is no trace left of sin. 
Is this Glory hard to imagine? Of course. But we have seen Jesus crucified and him raised up. The brilliance of his resurrection erases all the dread of his suffering. 
We live in that promise.