The Righteousness of God
Just about every verse in this passage could be the focus of its own reflection. But as I read and prayed it, the line that kept coming up was this: “For our sake, God made him [that is, Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
There is more than one way to understand what happened and what was accomplished in Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. But the Church has always said that this is how God has chosen to deal with sin, how God has, is, and will overcome the brokenness and pain, the evil in the world and in our own hearts. We might disagree on the logistics, but there is no Christianity without the Cross, and there is no Church without the Resurrection.
It’s the second part of that that has caught my imagination here. St. Paul, who wrote this letter, calls us to know that our lives are meant to be the evidence of the fact that God has made a way out of the stuff that binds us and weighs us down, and into the freedom and full humanity for which we are made. God, in Christ, did all of it so that we might become the righteousness of God.
Our lives in Christ, as followers of Jesus and receivers of his grace are meant to reflect the things of God—love and justice, peace and joy, mercy and generosity, grace and healing, on and on—wherever we are, and come what may. We’re not made just for private devotion; we’re created to image the God who loves this world to the end and then through it, in all we do.
Lord Jesus, thank You that there is nothing that You won’t give to set us free from the stuff that would destroy us. Help us to receive the gift of Your grace, and share Your life-giving Way with everyone we meet. Amen.
Aaron Miller