Saying Yes

Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father. Matthew 5:16

In today’s first reading, Saint Paul says that Jesus was never “Yes and No.” Rather with him “it was always Yes”. Paul goes on to declare that Jesus is the Yes to all God’s promises. All of the promises that God made in the Jewish Scriptures have come to pass in Jesus.

We don’t always follow through on our promises. We don’t always say “Yes” to our promises. However, God has said “Yes” to all his promises through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. God says “Yes” to each one of us, to all of us, through the giving of his Son. We say “Yes” to one another by investing in one another, by loving one another generously. God’s greatest investment in us was the giving of his Son to us. He expressed his love for us fully by sending his Son into our lives.

God’s sending of his Son, his investment in us, wasn’t just a one time event two thousand years ago. God says “Yes” to us each day of our lives. God’s investment in us is continuous. God sends the Spirit of his Son into our hearts here and now. As Paul says at the end of that reading, God gives us “the Spirit in our hearts as a first installment.” It is God’s continuing investment in us, his saying “Yes” to us every day, that allows us to become what Jesus calls in the gospel reading, “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world.” We probably don’t think of ourselves very often as “the light of the world.” Surely it is Jesus who is the light of the world. Yet, God’s continuous investment in us can enable us to become Jesus figures in our world today. God needs us to be the presence of his Son to others. That is why God keeps investing in us so fully.

Blessings,
Deacon Jack