SCRIPTURE
The souls of the just are in the hand of God—(not as) seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead…. but (rather) they are in peace with God (now in the hereafter)…They shall be greatly blessed, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself. In the time of their visitation (with God) they shall shine…and the Lord shall be their King forever. [Wisdom.3]
HOMILY
Have you heard of the Texas Two Step Dance? It’s a basic country dance move. The Texas Two Step goes like this: Quick step. Quick step. Slow step. Slow step.
Now I’ll introduce you to the Salvation Two Step!
Step 1. Salvation comes through the offering of a life in Jesus Christ. To you. To me. That’s the Vital and necessary Step 1. Jesus leads it. Step 2. Jesus’ Self-Offering has you and I apply it in our own self-offering our personal and (then) communal response back to God. It’s an Offering by Jesus and then you ‘answer back’ Jesus’ Self-Giving step with your own self-giving move, to be like His.
‘Got it, yet? Let’s have a further lesson in the Salvation Two Step—which all Catholics need to know for the Wedding Dance at the Lord’s Supper.
Salvation comes to us with a total Self-Offering—Totus Tuus—as St. John Paul II describes. Jesus leads, as He offers His life for ours. Jesus offers Himself that we might be saved. As we follow in the Salvation Two Step, it is all about receiving the great blessing of eternal life with God, in a manner of being in step with Christ. How are we to be “in step” with Him? Well–don’t do your own thing, like in acting like Jesus’ did not do what He did for you. Note how Jesus lived the Dance, and reply by making an offering of your life to His. To be in sync, and not in self: Get into a thanksgiving return to God rhythm, as to offer your own life to Him, so that the salvation He gives takes hold in us in for His Holy Light to brighten our souls. As you lean in to Him, then take His hand.
The Salvation Two Step is not a quick, quick, step, step dance. Here’s how it works: It’s a Full Step by Christ, The Lord and lead. You acknowledge Him, in a Pause, and then give a full step back to where He has led. ‘Got it? And you reach out for His hand.
It is recognizing Christ’ lead in total Self-Offering (or Self-Giving), and then responding in kind with a good, self-offering from you to Christ. Try to be totally into it. Take the hand of God in your response move.
Now, let’s see the Word for today in Wisdom 3:1. “The souls of the just are in the hand of God…” so the Scripture leads off. You are looking to give a fair and just response to God and be joined hand-to-hand.
Wisdom 3 is a prophetic word at the close of the Old Testament, told about 80 to 50 years before Christ’ Birth. It is proclaiming that God will take souls into eternity, and people shall live on, to the eternal dance of love, so that while they become physically dead, in their body’s ending, their lives will not be over. Their soul goes on to meet God. This prophetic word was pretty radical in 50 b.c., but Our Lord came and did the radical in Jesus of Nazareth, born approximately 1 b.c./1 a.d. and Who lived as Messiah walking and talking among us to 33 a.d. He came with Good News from God to save His people through Him, as He shows us totus tuus at the Last Supper, His Cross, and The Rising moves He made, to His Sitting in Glory as Lord over us, the God/man Savior. Some like to call Him “the Lord of the Dance.” And he teaches in a Gospel of Full Giving for us to “follow Him.” So we do. We reply to His love and Self-Gift with love and self-gift from ourselves. That is the Salvation Two Step!
The Gospel of John 6:38-40 today has Jesus tell us: “For I have come down from heaven…to do…the will of (the Father) Who sent me…that I would not lose those He given me… but that all who seen the Son and believe in him… may be raised up…and may have eternal life In Him.” Jesus intends for you to take His Hand in this self-less Dance of life.
Let’s go back to the Wisdom literature and Scripture that, contrary to some Jewish or worldly beliefs at the time, claimed how a person, after their passing away, could have a “hope full of immortality!” God’s Word in Wisdom 3 says it. That is, though a deceased person’s earthly body does go to burial and dust and bones, it’s not so with the soul. A truth remains with us today, two millennia later, of how “the soul lives on, either to abide in God, or remain apart from God after judgment.Take a listen to Wisdom 3:9— As you trust in Him, you come to understand this truth of eternity for humankind, and that the faithful in God shall abide with Him in love, or remain with Him…and in his care. That’s a reassurance we need. So to respond to Christ properly for salvation. We have a response part in the Salvation Two Step.
Jesus gave His perfect life as a sacrifice for our sins and for a power to live with Him after death in His Presence. This is for all his holy ones. says Wisdom 3:9 again.
Jesus gave His perfect offering for us—that is the Step 1 point, that does lead to a Step 2 point on our part. That would be of a good response from us. It’s such an expected deep response by us, that it is to be nothing short of our own self-offering back to God. It may take a lifetime of living out this self-giving to The Lord, our totus tuus.
I am a slow learner in some ballroom dance steps. So slow—that after a number of lessons, I don’t have it at all. I’m fairly a failure at it. But I am glad I would need to do it to enter into Glory.
Yet I’ll have the Salvation Two Step down and ready for the Lord’s look at me.
What will happen if we do respond selflessly to God like this? We get the golden transformation, as even our trials just turn to gold to where we enter into a sacrificial offering of them to God, of which He “can take unto Himself,’ says Wisdom 3.
God the Word in Jesus Christ calls the soul to this immortality of which He speaks. Jesus enters that Jewish world of Wisdom’s time, then, nearly 2000 years ago, and at 33 years old would offer Himself as a perfect sacrifice so that if we indeed become “buried with Him through baptism…(then) we might live a new life…as absolved from sin…via Christ’ Sacrifice…we shall also go on to live with Him.” That Good Word is what you recognize as verses from the epistle for today. Romans 6;3-9.
Our Holy Mass presents the Sacrifice of Christ (point one) and gathers a people to present themselves continually as a living sacrifice back to God (point two, or step two). We come to be self-offerings to God, which shows meaning to our bows or kneeling actions in Mass, and to our words of surrender prayed like in “have mercy on us, Lord,” and “Lamb of God Who take away the sins of the world,, grant us peace.” Or consider the Mass of our submitting here to Jesus for His giving Himself out to us, in Totus Tuus, by then, our humble reception or receiving of Him in the Eucharist. That’s the Catholic faith. The Lord of the Dance really has us, in some light-hearted comparison, as partners in the Romantic dance to life.