Our Venerable Father Theodore the Sanctified, Disciple of Saint Pachomius (364)
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Acts 10:34-43; John 8:12-20
Christ is risen! Truly, He is risen!
Many passages in the Old Testament use walking as a metaphor for living a good or bad life. The book of Psalms begins, “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the ways of the wicked,” and is filled with the pleas of the righteous who “walk in the law of the Lord,” and who pray that their walk will be acceptable to God (“direct my steps according to your word,” “Teach me your way and I will walk in your truth,” etc.). So when Jesus said the first words of today’s gospel, his Jewish audience knew exactly what he was talking about: if you want to live righteously, if you want to be ‘ethical’, if you want to walk in the light instead of darkness, then you need Jesus.
But there is something unique about what Jesus is saying here: he is making a relationship with him the key element in living a good life. After all, without Jesus, we are in darkness. It’s tempting to think that anyone lives a good life, no matter what they believe, especially in our modern, pluralistic world. But Jesus’ claim is more than ethical – it’s relational. Our problem isn’t so much that we can’t behave correctly (although that is a problem), but that our relationship with God has broken down because of our sins, and we can’t heal that relationship ourselves; instead, God himself heals this relationship, through Jesus Christ. And it’s because we are adopted as sons and daughters of God that we can, for the first time, live a truly good life.
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