Saturday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 478

Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 

For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed you from the law of sin and death.

Saint Paul wrote from personal experience about condemnation to people -- Jews first but also gentiles -- who also lived under a cloud of condemnation. 

The Jews of Rome felt far from their homeland, like a people in exile, and knew they would never return to Jerusalem. The diaspora was centuries old by the time of Christ, and Jews were settled from India to Spain, from North Africa to habitable regions of northern Europe. They were an alien people living among alien peoples, and their memory of Jerusalem was enshrined in the Law of Moses; that is, their rituals, customs, and dietary restrictions. 

But they also suffered an uncomfortable sense of not getting it right. Their religion may have been good enough but it wasn't good. 

Gentiles, attracted to the Jewish religion by its moral teachings and belief in One, Sovereign, Merciful and Compassionate God, inherited that sense of dissatisfaction. And condemnation. For there were also Jewish travelers, Pharisee missionaries, who compared the life style of Jews in exile to the Jerusalem base, and found it inadequate. 

And so they were ready to hear of a new movement among Jews that dismissed a strict reading of the Law in favor of the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Saint Paul and his party taught that circumcision and strict dietary practices were not only unnecessary; they make matters worse for they create a false assurance. 

If they accepted as historical fact the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and recognized him as LORD; if they caught the Spirit of Jesus as they worshiped with his disciples; if they lived by generous and hospitable customs of this new community -- which shares and shares alike -- they would escape condemnation and enjoy a penetrating, delightful freedom. 

No more fearful toeing the line. No more trying to satisfy an implacable God and his ever-watchful, ever-suspicious community. No more need to hide one's devious impulses from the pious and self-righteous. 

In place of such fear was a willingness to receive guidance, reassurance and gentle rebuke as they learned this new way of life. With continual prayer, the Holy Spirit would show them how to live in a pagan world with its bizarre values and barbaric rituals. If they were challenged by hostile forces, they would find a new kind of joy in their hearts like that of Daniel and his companions in the fiery furnace. 

Because they worshiped a God who had died and been raised up, their natural fear of death was tempered by an assurance of resurrection. To their astonishment, they found a fearlessness among their companions, even among teenage girls, that defied the worse cruelties of Roman soldiers. The Jews had long commemorated the martyrs of the Maccabean era; Christians discovered new martyrs among their own. The hostility of the world and their courage were the surest signs of God's blessing on the Church. 

We are all condemned to death. That is certain. But "there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."