Shade Tree Wisdom 4/5/12

          Maunday Thursday, the day of the Commandment.

          Each day we experience the damage that sin causes in the world.  Greed, injustice, dishonesty, cruelty, all trace their beginning to the first disobedience of Adam and Eve that brought sin into the world.

          St. Paul writes, Romans 5,12, “As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”  That gives us the problem we have to deal with, and the Holy Week brings us the solution that God has planned to save those sinners from death.

          Romans 5 really celebrates the victory of Christ, where St. Paul sets the power of sin over against the grace of God in Christ, and grace is always the victor.  For even though sin keeps slipping into the picture, yet grace always overpowers it.

          Romans 5 ends with these words: ”As sin reigned to death, so grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life.” V.21. for “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound”.  That's the real meaning of the cry on the cross, “It is finished”.  Let the Holy Week strengthen and refresh your life lived unto Him.

          Indeed, as Romans 6,23 writes, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”

GPD 4/5/12