This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.
In the first reading, St. Paul explains some beautiful theology about how only faith in God saves; abiding by the law cannot save anyone. Essentially, the best you can do by keeping the law is a non-negative. By following the law, even, we may say, the Ten Commandments, the best we can do is avoid heaping additional condemnation (“curse”) on ourselves through additional sin.
Since following the law cannot save, the implication is that condemnation is already upon us, even before we transgress the law for the first time. This is the doctrine of original sin.
When Paul says that faith alone saves, he is not saying that whether or not we follow the Ten Commandments does not matter. Rather, he is saying that a non-negative isn’t going to get us out of the rut of condemnation we’re already in. We need the “strong man” from today’s Gospel passage, God Himself in the flesh, to go beyond the non-negative to a net positive–to blow the doors of the cell of condemnation in which we have enclosed ourselves through sin, and release us to be free in Him once more.
And this salvation comes free of charge–all we need is to believe in it, to have faith like that of Abraham.
When speaking about the curse hanging over us from which Christ saves us, St. Paul uses a striking image: “Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree.” (Cf. Dt. 21:23) In the book of Deuteronomy, a book of the law, it is mandated that a corpse hanged on a pole for a capital offense not be left overnight, because a corpse hanging on a tree is a curse of God.
The capital offender has done what St. Paul describes. He has heaped condemnation upon himself by the most grievous offense of the law. As such, his corpse on display represents God’s curse.
But in reference to this passage from Deuteronomy, Paul emphasizes that “Christ ransomed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” by becoming the one whose corpse hangs from the tree. By becoming the curse of God. No wonder Christ utters those mysterious words from the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (cf. Mt. 27:46) He has taken the place of the capital offender and, hanging from the tree, has become the curse of God. “For our sake,” Paul tells us elsewhere in arguably the most striking statement in all his writings, the Father “made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.”
This is the degree of the love of God for us.
So when you call out to Him with a need, will He not hear you?
So it is, as today’s Alleluia verse tells us, that “The prince of this world will now be cast out, and when I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all to myself, says the Lord.”
In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus explains why he can’t be casting out demons by the power of another demon. The demon is safe from expulsion until one stronger than he–that is, not another demon, on the same plane of power as he–comes along. Only when one stronger comes along, Jesus, the Son of God, is the demon cast out. (cf. Jn 12:31-32)
Today’s gospel thus explains the dynamic described by St. Paul. In the act of becoming the curse of God, and thus removing our curse, Jesus is the strong man by whom “the prince of this world will now be cast out.” And so it is that, lifted up to the earth, as the condemned man on the tree, the curse of God, Jesus draws all men to Himself, and grants them the free gift of salvation that they could never achieve on their own, even through perfect fulfillment of the law.
If God the Father is the Creator, and Christ the Redeemer, then Christ’s Redemption is the the Father’s most awe-inspiring creation in the history of the universe.
Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Gaze at a crucifix and behold the curse of God: Christ voluntarily become sin to save you. When we do not trust in Christ’s power and love for us, it is like the slap in the face that the soldier gave him before the Sanhedrin (cf. Jn. 18:22). Ask Jesus to help you to love Him by trusting in His mercy for you, and by trusting in His power to direct your life on the path of happiness.
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