| CONTENTS Preface Prologue |
ANTIOCH WEEKEND LEADERS MANUAL |
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THE WORK OF CHRIST |
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| Introduction
to the Antioch Weekend
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INTRODUCTION:
Speaker: The spiritual director Duration: 45 minutes Purpose: To explain in outline how Christ saves us. To lay the foundation for the talks that follow; Christian Community, Being a Christian, Growth Style: Direct, joyful, lively Animated by a sense of reappropriating the good news. Although a theological talk in the sense that it presents an ordered structure of ideas, never weighted with either theological jargon or theological controversy. Bold and confident, like Peter's talk (Acts 2:22-37) A serious talk and fairly long, yet an anecdote a bit humor, in good taste and to the point, may provide a relaxing moment and sustain attention. Progression: The talk opens with a short consideration of God's call to holiness. Holiness implies that God makes us aware of Himself (revelation - the importance of reading scripture) and speaks to us (God's Call), that He is to be accepted as a person (Meditation on Prayer) and that a response is to be given (Being a Christian). The next section states that what God has destined us to is beyond our native powers. Further (through the Fall) man is completely separated from God and on his side has now way back to Him. The third part of talk (and the longest) considers Christ's work of redemption. It considers the meaning of Christ as the redeemer, what he has done, and how he has done it. The last part of the talk indicated that the work of Christ becomes effective for us through incorporation into his body by faith and baptism. We have been made sons of the Father and must respond as Christ responds (Growth). The new life of grace creates a new people whose bond is Christ and whose dynamism is the Holy Spirit (Christian Community and The Church and the World). This life with Christ and with one another is sustained by the scripture and by the Eucharist. It creates a restless people whose zeal is never satisfied until all persons are gathered into the household of the Father (Mission).
THE OUTLINE: I. GOD'S CALL IS THE CALL TO HOLINESS A. Holiness is awareness of God's presence among us and acceptance of response to that presence. 1. Awareness: God is present to and speaks to us (revelation) 2. Acceptance: God is recognized not only as a power but as a person. 3. Response: Consecration - a life for Him. Worship - prayer and sacrifice, honor constantly paid to God. B. The call to holiness is the message of the Old Testament. II. MAN/WOMAN ALONE CANNOT ANSWER THE CALL TO HOLINESS A. Adam, who had been created holy and lived in familiar friendship with God, refused to accept his dependence on God as the source of his holiness, broke this divine friendship and lost this closeness to God. B. The human race is left in separation from God - to realize in time its fundamental inability to return to God (diagram A). III. THE INTERVENTION OF GOD Until God chooses to act, man's unity with God cannot be restored. A. Slowly God revealed himself as a Father through Abraham and the prophets and prepared for himself a holy people. B. In the fullness of time, God sent his own Son (diagram B). 1. He became one of us, thoroughly and completely, sin excepted. 2. He opened the eyes of men to the Father and to their own sinfulness. 3. He redeemed us from the sin of the world, overcame the separation and reconciled us to the Father. a. Crucifixion (his suffering and death): he expiates sin by the complete offering of himself to the Father. b. Resurrection: he triumphs over sin and death (his offering is accepted by the Father) and he restores men to life with the Father. c. Ascension: he returns to the Father, uniting men and women to the Father. 4. Only Christ could have done this. Without him, we would all be lost. C. The results of Christ's work is to offer us through faith and baptism, the new life of grace. 1. Grace is new life. 2. It is the life of God shared with us and it puts us in a new relation to Him. 3. It is a gift, bought by Christ, given to us as to Adam, perhaps without our choice, but which each of us must accept or reject. 4. It is a life capable of growth. IV. CHRIST COMES TO US TODAY A. Christ comes to us through His Church. 1. The Church brings is Word (Bible) and is actions (the sacraments) 2. In the Church, is Body, we find a new life. B. Christ offers us a new life. 1. To fully receive it, we must accept Him as Lord and Redeemer. 2. We live this life in the family of the Christian community whose union with Christ and one another is sustained by the Eucharist. 3. We respond to Him: a. Through worship of the Father in spirit and in truth. b. by sharing our knowledge and love of him with others.
THE COMMENTARY A major danger in giving this talk to make it too theological complex. There are many theories and refinements about the work of redemption that could be included in a talk of this title. This talk, however, has to perform a special function within the weekend. It is intended to make one point: Christ is necessary, necessary for us to achieve the life God is calling us to, neces-sary for us to achieve what we were made for, what our life is all about. Therefore, the talk should be given with simplicity and directness. This is the place in the weekend for the stu-dents to be told with us much clarity and force us possible (in no uncertain terms) that they need Christ. No matter what they think, they cannot do without Him. For this reason, the speaker goes not feel that he has justify or argue in any way. His role is simply to tell them that they need Christ. To do this, he has to explain the basic gospel message, not in a great detail of with much refinement. Involved in this is certainly making sense of it, and showing the greatness of the life Chris is opening up to us, but all these things should be done in a straightforward way. The progression of the message of the talk can be summarized in four sentences: 1) God is calling us to a new, better life of close union with Him (holiness) 2) Man cannot achieve this life by himself 3) Only Christ makes this life possible 4) We find this new life through accepting Christ and union with Him right-now. The various points in the outline are meant to explain these four ideas. The speaker should think of himself as preaching the gospel (i. e., telling people the good news). This is the talk in the weekend which everyone hears Gods message of good news. The general approach of the talk is the approach of the messages given by the early apostles in Acts (especially Acts 10:34ff, but also 2:14ff, 3:12ff, 4:8ff, 5:29ff, 13:16ff). The heart of this talk is what is contained in the gospel formulary of Paul in I Cor. 15:3-4. I. GOD'S CALL IS THE CALL TO HOLINESS The first section is a restatement of what has been said before in God's Call, the meditation on prayer, and the sermon on the liturgy. It summarizes the message of the weekend up to this point, but differently by introducing the idea of holiness. The first section ahould stress the greatness of what God is calling us to so that impossibility of man achieving it on his own will be clearer. (N. B. Whenever there is a list of Bible passages, these are suggestions. The speaker might use some, all or others.) A very common misunderstanding in the mind of the students will be the idea that holiness is simply a matter of being morally pefect (the Kantian idea of holiness). A saint is someone who does not sin. The speaker should deal with this making clear the holiness is primarily a matter of a relationship to God, not just to the moral law. Paul...sends greeting to the Church of God at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Jesus Christ and called to be holy (I Cor. 1:1). For consider what He has done - before the foundation of the world He chose us to become, in Christ, His holy and blameless children living within His constant care. He planned, in His purpose of love, that we should be adopted as His own children through Jesus Christ. (Eph. 1:6-7) I. A. Holiness is awareness of God's presence among us... We have been called to be part of God's people, to a whole new kind of existence, to a life of holiness because God lives with us and is present among us. He has chosen to be present among us not in the way that He is present everywhere, but present in the way the Old Testament describes by saying, "He has turned His face toward us." He has chosen us out to be His people, to be a people that He can live among and walk among as He used to do with Adam in the Garden of Eden. God lives in us and among us. I. A. 1. Acceptance: God is recognized not only as a power but as a person We must accept God and not just as some dynamic or cosmic force (that we can make use of when we want to). We cannot accept a person and at the same time ignore him. We must turn to Him, our Lord. I. A. 2. Response: Consecration - a life for Him. Worship - prayer and sacrifice, honor constantly paid to God A life of holiness involves being set a part for God, being dedicated to Him, that is, being consecrated. God's will not be treated as one among many things. His people must be different. They must be liked God. "As I am holy, so you must be holy." (Lev. 19:2) A life of holiness means being a temple of God. He dwells in His people and fills them with His glory. They are the place of His worship. They are a people who pray to Him, worship Him, live in His presence with Him among them. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people God means to have for Himself; it is yours to proclaim the exploits of God who has called you of darkness into His marvelous light. (I Peter 2:9) I. B. The call to holiness is the message of the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the record of God's revelation to a special people of what He had in mind for them (holiness). The New Testament shows how it becomes possible. II. MAN ALONE CANNOT ANSWER THE CALL TO HOLINESS The second section makes the second point of the talk; man cannot go it alone. By himself, he cannot accomplish what he was creat-ed for. There are two reason why not. First of all, he cannot go it alone, because the call to holiness requires a person who beyond us. God takes us into His family and asks us to responds as sons - something which we are completely incapable of doing until He gives us that fundamental power, the life of grace. Through Christ we are taken into the divine family. Through Him and with His pattern before us we are sons and can so act. Man also cannot go it alone because of sin. He is living in funda-mental separation from God and disobedience to Him. This sin must be atoned for. In presenting this section, the speaker should remember that there is a fuller presentation of sin in the Church and the World talk. In this section, he must simply stress man's dependence on God for living what he was made for, and his separation from God (sin) and consequent inability to fulfill his human destiny. II. A. Adam, who had been created holy and... This section is intended to stress that the source of man's sin is the unwillingness to accept his true relation with God (de-pendence is involved). What is lost is above all a friendship with God. The point might be made by recounting briefly the story of Adam. II. B. The human race is left in separation from God Separation is the aspect of sin to be stressed. Many are not conscious of their disobedience to God (their failure to live in accordance with his plan) or their sin. They are, however, readily conscious of being separated from God. III. THE INTERVENTION OF GOD Until God choose to act, man's unity with God cannot be restored This section is meant to make a simple point: it is Jesus Christ who saves us. Without Him, we cannot reach what God is calling us to. We cannot reach what were made for. Now I would remind you, brother, in what term I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you it fast. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also re-ceived, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the scripture... (I Cor. 15:1-4) III. A. Slowly God reveals Himself as a Father through Abraham and... This section should be a very brief summary of salvation history, to tie the Old Testament and the God's Call talk in with the New Testament and the Wolk of Christ. III. B. In the fulness of time, God sent His own Son This section presents a very powerful truth. God became man to reach us and to bring us back to Him. He became man, suffered and died to save us and to bring us back to Himself. It is truth that in a certain sense is absurd (a mystery), but as a revela-tion of the love of God and of our situation has a profound impact. He, who had always been God by nature, did not cling to His prerogative as God's equal, but stripped Himself of all privilege by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born as mortal man. And, having become man, humbled Himself by living a life of utter obedience, even to the extent of dying, and the death He died was the death of a common criminal. (Phil. 2:6-8) A collection of quotes by Frank Sheed in Theology and Sanity (Sheed and Ward, N.Y., 1946, p. 196) that state in Christ's own words the purpose of His coming: To Zacchaeus, the chief publican, He said: (Luke 19:10) "That is what the Son of Man has come for, to search out and to save what was lost." Compare this with what He said earlier to Nicodemus (John 3:15): "This Son of Man must be lifted up, as the serpent was lifted up by Moses in the wilderness; so that those who believe in Him may not perish but have eternal life." Following this, w have either as part of Our Lord's speech to Nicodemus or written in commen-tary by the Evangelist: "God so loved the world, that he gave up His only-begotten Son, so that those who believe in Him may not perish, but have eternal life. When God sent His son into the world, it was not reject the world, but so that the world migth find salvation through Him." To the Roman governor Pilate, He said (John 18:37): "What I was born for, what I came into the world for, is to bear witness of the truth." To the Pharisees and Scribes, He said (Luke 5:32): "I have come to call sinners to repentance." He sent out His Apostles (Luke 9:2) "To proclaim the Kingdom of God" and not work miracles in support of their message. To the Apostles, angry with James and John for seeking the first place in His Kingdom, He said (Mt. 20:28): "The Son of Man did not come to have service done Him; He came to serve others, and to give His life a ransom for the lives of many." Again to the Pharisees (John 10:10): "I have come so that they may have life and have it more abundantly." III. B. 1. He became one of us, thoroughly and completely, sin expected By becoming one of us, Christ acts in, with and for us to restore us to the Father. He may act for us, for He is truly one of us, subject to all our weaknesses except sin, and simply one who appears as man. He was truly hungry and thirsty. He truly worked and felt the weariness of tired muscles, the fatigues of a long day's journey. And He truly suffered even to the death of the cross in order to blot out the decree written against us. So the word of God became a human being and lived among us. (John 1:14) Seeing that we have a great High Priest who has entered the inmost Heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to our faith. For we have no superhuman High Priest to whom our weak-nesses are uninteligible - He Himself has shared fully in all our experiences of temptation, except that He never sinned. (Heb. 4:14-15) III. B. 2. He opened the eyes of men to the Father and to their own sinfulness Christ reveals God in the fullest possible way. Because of Him we can see what our true situation is. God , who gave to our forefathers many different glimpses of the truth in the words of the prophets, has now, at the end of the present age, given us the truth in the Son. (Heb. 1:1-2) III. B. 3. He redeemed us from the sin of the world, overcame the separation, and reconciled us to the Father This section is the nub of the message. Christ came into the world to bring us back to the Father and to give us new life certainly but to do this by redeeming us from our sin, by atoning for sin. And He did it by definite historical acts: His cruci-fixion, resurrection, and ascension. He did it by offering a sacrifice, a sacrifice of perfect worship, obedience, and love to the Father, but also a sacrifice that involved suffering, the shedding of blood, and death. This is the form the obedience had to take. This mystery cannot be made fully intelligible, cer-tainly not in a talk of this length, but it must be stated, because it is the core of the gospel message. For God caused Christ, who Himself knew nothing of sin, actually to be sin for our sakes, so that in Christ we might be made good with the goodness of God. (II Cor. 5:21) And yet ours were the sufferings He bore, Ours the sorrows He carried. But we, we thought of Him as someone punished, struck by God and brought low. Yet He was pierced through for our faults, crushed for our sins. On Him lies a punishement that brings us peace. And through His wounds we are healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, each taking his own way, and Yahweh burdened Him wit the sins of us all. For Christ has come among us, the High Priest of the good things which were to come... It was not with goats or calves's blood but with His own blood that He entered once for all into the holy of holies, having won for us men eternal reconciliation with God. And if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a burnt heifer were, when sprinkled on the unholy, sufficient to make the body pure, then how much more with the blood pf Christ Himself, who in His eternal spirit offered Himself to God as the perfect sacrifice, purify our souls from the deeds of death, that we may serve the living God! Christ is consenquently the administrator of an entirely new agreement, having the power, by virtue of His death, to redeem transgression committed under the first agreement: to enable those who obey God's call to enjoy the promises of the eternal inheritance...Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many and after that, to those who look for Him, He will appear a second time, not this time to deal with sin, but to bring to full salvation those who eagerly await Him. (Heb. 9:11-28) Everyone has sinned; everyone falls short of the beauty of God's plan. Under this divine "system," a man who has faith is now freely acquitted in the eyes of God by His generous dealing in the redemptive act of Christ Jesus. God has appointed Him as the means of propitiation, a propitiation accomplished by the shed-ding of His blood, to be received and made effective in oursleves by faith (Rom. 3:23-25). III. B. 3. Crucifixion (His suffering and death): He expiate sin by.... Christ takes upon Himself the sin of all men. By His complete love and worship, by His perfect obidience, by His suffering and dearth, by the sheding of His blood, He makes up for all sin and reconciles man and God. This section contains the "scandal" of the cross - Christ's redemptive death for us. "Christ sent me...to proclaim the gospel. And I have not done by the persuasiveness of clever words, for I have no desire to rob the cross of its power. The preaching of the cross is, I know, nonsense to those who are involved in this dying world, but to us who are being saved from that death, it is nothing less than the power of God... For it was after the world in its wisdom had failed to know God, that He in His wisdom chose to save all who would believe by the simplymindedness of the gospel message... All we preach is Christ crucified - a stumbling - block to the Jews and sheer nonsense to the gentiles, but for those who are called, whether Jews or Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." (I Cor. 1:17-24) III. B. 3. b. Resurrection: He triumphs over sin and death "Calling to mind the suffering of Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, and not only His resurrection from the dead, but also His glori-ous ascension into heaven..." - from th canon of the Latin Mass. Christ's return to the Father in the ascension marks His ulti-mates acceptance in which humanity is united to the Father. He has set the pattern for us and prepared the way. "If we have died with Him, we shall also live with Him." A new and trans-formed life. Christ retraced the steps of Adam, who went from life to death, by going from death to life. God loved us with so much love that He was generous with His mercy when we were dead through our sins. He brought us to life with Christ - it is through grace that you have been saved - and raised us up with Him and gave us a place with Him in heaven, in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:4-6) III. B. 4. Only Christ could have done this. Without Him, we would all be lost Only Christ had the entree to the Father and to us. He alone could bridge the gap. We need Christ and what He did for us. This section is the summary and central points of the whole talk. The main idea can (and probably should) be phrased in a variety of ways: without Christ, men would have missed the point of life, failed to achieve their purpose, missed what they were made for, etc. The plain fact is that apart from me, you can do nothing at all (John 15:5) In no one else can salvation be found. For in all the world no other name has been given to men but this, and it is by name that we must be saved! (Acts 4:12) I myself am the road and the truth and the life. No one ap-proaches the Father except through me. (John 14:6) These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation: I know what you have done, and that you are neither hot nor cold. I could wish that you were either hot or cold! But since you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I intend to spit you out of my mouth! While you say, "I am rich, I have prospered, and there is nothing that I need," you have no eyes to see that you are wretched, pitiable poverty stricken, blind and naked. My advice to you is to buy from me that gold which is purified in the furnace so that you may be rich, and white garments to wear so that you may hide the shame of your nakedness, and salve to put on your eyes to make you see...Therefore shake off your compla-cency and repent. (Apos. 3:14-19, these words are written to Christians who felt no great need for Christ.) III. C. The result of Christ's work is to offer us through faith and baptism... Christ has a accomplished redemption for all men. His work is the perfect redemption of humanity. That means that redemption is open to everyone. Christ is offering new life to each person. The result of Christ's work of redemption is new life, the new life of grace, which is open to each person who unities himself to Christ through faith and baptism. I came to bring them life, and far more life than before. (Jn. 10:10) Thus he would manifest the splendor of that grace by which He has taken us into His favor in the person of His beloved Son. It is in Him and through His blood that we enter redemption, the fore-giveness fo our sins. (Eph. 1:6) Christ died for us all, so that being alive should no longer mean living with our own life, but with His life, who died for us, and has risen again...when a man become new about him. (II Cor. 5:15-17) The ideas in this section migth best be made through commenting on the dialogue between Christ and Nicodemus. (John 3:1-9) III. C. 1. Grace is new life The word "grace" means "favor." The primary favor Christ bestows on us in new life (sanctifying grace). III. C. 2. It is the life of God shared with us and it puts us in a new relation to Him We are given a new way of existence. It is a sharing in God's life. In Christ He has made His own being available to us. We can live with His life. We can share His nature. Our life is meant to be a kind of divinization, a kind of transformation into God. As the Father puts it, Christ became man in order that we might become God. Think of the love that Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God's children; and that is what we are. (I Jn. 3:1) I live now not with my own life, but with the life of Christ who lives in me. (Gal.2:20) In making these gifts, He has given us the guarantee of something very great and wonderful to come through them you will be able to share the divine nature...(II Pet. 1:4) III. C. 3. It is a gift, bought by Christ... This section should stress although Christ offers us the new life as a free gift that we do not have to earn, there is a matter of choice. It does not come to us automatically. We have to accept it or reject it. It was nothing you could or did achieve-it was God's gift of grace which saved you. No one can pride himself on earning the love of God. (Eph. 2:8-9) See, I stand knocking at the door. If anyone listens to my voice and opens the door, I will go into his house and dine with him, and he with me. (Apoc. 3:20) III. C. 4 It is a life capable of growth This point will be developed more fully in the talk Growth. The parable of the mustard seed is useful here (Mt. 13:31-32). IV. CHRIST COMES TO US TODAY Section IV makes the talk contemporary. Section III talks about what Christ did in Palestine 2000 years ago. Section IV explains how Christ and the new life He won are standing before us. It is up to us to accept it and enter into it or to turn away. Section IV, therefore, also explains in broad outlines (for the rest of the talks to build on) how to accept it and enter into it. IV. A. Christ comes to us through His Church Christ is still alive in the world. He lives in the Church, His body. The Church is the body of Christ, and that means that Christ lives in it and acts through it in the world. In and through the Church we can make contact with Christ. God has placed everything under the power of Christ and has set Him up as head of everything for the Church. For the Church is His body, and in that body lives fully the one who fills the whole wide universe. (Eph. 1:22) IV. A. 1. The Church brings us His Word (the Bible) and His action (the sacraments) Christ is the head of the Church, and he operates in the Church, building up the Church and those who are in it. He speaks to them, primarily through the Bible, and He does things for them, primarily through the sacraments. Therefore, we can find contact with Christ in the Church primarily through the Bible and the sacraments. Through them Christ will speak to us directly and do things for us directly. These are the main ways in which Christ is present to us. Each of these things has been (or will be) treated in other places. There is no need here to explain at length how the Bible and sacraments are Christ's presence in the Church. This section is meant rather to put them in the perspective of how the results of the work of Christ come to us. IV. A. 2. In the Church, His body, we find a new life If Christ is present in the Church, if it is His body, then the place in which a person finds the new life in Christ is the Church. This was to create one single New Man in Himself out of the two of them (Jew and Gentile) and by restoring peace through the cross, to unite them both in a single Body and reconcile them with God...Through Him, both of us have in the one Spirit our way to come to the Father. So you are no longer aliens or foreign visitors: you are citi-zens like all the saints and part of God's household. You are part of a building that has the apostles and prophets for its foundation, and Christ Jesus Himself for its main cornerstone. As every structure is aligned on Him, all grow into one holy temple in the Lord; and you too, in Him, are being built into a house where God lives, in the Spirit. (Eph. 2:15-22) IV. B. Christ offers us new life This is just a summary of III C, but it stresses that He is offering it to us right now. IV. B. 1. To fully receive it, we must accept Him as Lord and Redeemer To fully receive redemption and the new life we must turn to Christ and enter into a full personal union with Him. We must accept Him as our Lord, asking from Him forgiveness for our sins and new life. We cannot be a part of the body without being united to the head. This point prepares for being a Christian. To all who did accept Him. He gave power to become children of God. (Jn. 1:12) I am the light of the world; anyone who follows me will not be walking in the dark; he will have the light of life. (Jn. 8:12) IV. B. 2. We live this life in the family of the Christian community To be joined to Christ is to be joined with other Christians, the other members of His body. This body is built up and strength-ened especially through the Eucharist. This point prepares of Christian Community. For just as you have many members in one physical body and those members differ in their function, so we, though many in number, compose one body in Christ (Rom. 12:4-5) The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a very sharing in the blood of Christ? When we break the bread do we not actually share in the body of Christ? The very fact that we all share one bread makes us all one body. (I Cor. 10:16-17) IV. B. 3. we respond to Him through This section is not meant as an exhaustive enumeration of the ways we responds to Christ, but to mention a true worship of the Father to stress that Christ's work was to bring us to the Father (the theme of Friday) and to mention that a natural overflow of our love for Christ will be a desire to share this with others (the theme of Sunday). This later point will reinforce the importance of Christ, because if Christ is important for me, He must ne important for those around me too, otherwise He wasn't really all that important. God is Spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and it truth (Jn. 4:24) All have the same Lord, whose boundless resources are available to all who turn to Him in faith. For: "Whosever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Now how can they call on one in whom they have never believed? How can they believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how can they hear unless someone proclaims Him? (Rom. 10:12-14). |
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