Posted by Paul Edwards (Fr. Paul) on Apr 08, 2011 | Comments (0)


The Easter Season is all about Transformation

Jesus is a transformer. He transformed the Old Testament from a Book of Laws to a Gospel of grace. He said of the two Great Commandments to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves “on these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” The meaning of this is to do the loving thing. If the Law says to stone an adulterer or a disobedient child and it is not the loving thing to do then do not do it. No matter what the old Law said, Jesus is the authority because as the Bible tells us Jesus is the Word of God. John 1:1

He also transformed Sin. In the Old Testament “sin” means an immoral act. In the Gospel, Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the Sin not the sins of the World. Sin in this case is separation from God. In the Old Testament, you stop sinning to get into the Presence of God. In the New Testament, you get into the Presence of God to stop sinning. In this case, sinning is a symptom of the separation we have with God. Once in the Presence, we would not want to do those things we desire when outside of the Presence.

The real question is how do we get into the Presence? In the case of grace, one must know the difference between legalism and grace. Legalism is to do something God wants us to do to get in the Presence. Grace is to get in the Presence to do what God wants us to do. You do not have to know grace to know legalism. You will be legalistic if you do not know the difference between the two. In the same way we can access the grace by wondering what difference it would make if we were in or out of the Presence. The only way we can know it is by doing it. Easter is a great season to practice wondering what the difference makes.


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