Safe Haven

 I spend a lot of time with St. John and his Gospel in general, but I read a line yesterday that got me thinking. "The law came through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." John is not denigrating the law or Moses; rather, he is recognizing the superiority of Jesus and what he brings. The law, the prophets, and the sacrifices testified that something was still wrong. God is the lawgiver, but unless He gives the power for us to truly fulfill what He desires, we'll be simply chasing our tails, ever-desiring to be better, and to be happy, with no way to get there. Without grace, all of this is just a hopeless, do-it-yourself, exhausting morality play. This is why St. Paul says, "we who are Jews by birth, and not Gentile sinners, know that a man is not justified by works of the law…" but by faith in Christ. He is not trying to create an opposition between Jews and everyone else, but exactly the opposite: it is now the time in the story when all people ...