Word to the Wise
Friday, April 5, 2024 - Octave of Easter - Fri
[Acts 4:1-12 and John 21:1-14]FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2024 FRIDAY IN THE OCTAVE OF EASTER [Acts 4:1-12 and John 21:1-14] Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, answered them, "Leaders of the people and elders: If we are being examined today about a good deed done to a cripple, namely by what means he was saved, then all of you and all the people of Israel should know that it was in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead; in his name this man stands before you healed. He is the stone rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are saved." [Acts]
I was once invited at one of my campus ministries to address a group of students who belonged to one of the many evangelical Christian groups that one may encounter at a large university. The subject of my presentation was "spirituality," but when I finished, the questions that followed focused on one question: "Who can be saved?" For many of them, the words of Peter to the Jewish authorities in the first scripture for today, along with Jesus' words: "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.."[John 14:6] exclude from salvation anyone who does not explicitly, for whatever reason, believe in Jesus Christ. When I asked them to consider why God had created so many people over so many centuries only to have them suffer eternal torment through no fault of their own, the students were at a loss to respond. The question still vexes Christians of all kinds.
Seminaries and Christian theology schools have a course called "soteriology," which means the study of "salvation." (The Greek word, "soter," means "savior.") The subject includes the ever troubling question of predestination and other ways of understanding God's "plan of salvation" as revealed in the Bible and in Christian tradition. The Catechism of the Catholic Church and other important documents of Church teaching reject the idea that those who by no fault of their own have no knowledge of and have never rejected Christ are destined for eternal damnation. The importance of the Church - the Body of Christ - is that it has been commissioned to preach the saving news of Jesus Christ. We do not determine anyone's ultimate fate. Like Peter, our job is to preach the gospel. AMEN