Here's the First Step Towards Holiness...

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Some people think that by just being a priest, I have it easier in the holiness department...

Hopefully, this myth has been busted in the minds of many Christians, as many of us have made clear that we clergy are nothing special. I am human, just as you are. I have the same weaknesses you have. If anything, by being ordained, I am accountable before God and the gospel of Christ for how I live my life.

But even then, we all are accountable before God and Christ's gospel.

We are all called by God to a life of holiness.

How do we begin the journey?

Paul: "Put to death, however, whatever in you is earthly" (Colossians 3:5a)

In the third chapter of Colossians, the apostle Paul contrasts the old life and the new age that has begun for us after being raised with Christ in baptism. The main point of the third chapter of Colossians is this: we need to make a clean cut with the old life. 

That need is behind the strong language Paul uses in this chapter. Paul says literally in Greek in the passage quoted above: "put to death the limbs which are upon the earth." This language is reminiscent of our Lord's in Matthew 5:30: "And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell."

The hyperbolic language (in case there is any doubt, no, our Lord or the Apostle are not commanding us to amputate ourselves) is there to alert us, to wake us up, to the need to make a strong, clean cut with our past. 

Our commitment to this new way of life in Christ should be as clean-cut as an amputation. Once a member is amputated, it cannot be reconnected. Only this kind of serious, irrevocable commitment can begin for us our new life in Christ. Only this level of commitment can begin in us our journey towards holiness.

If you find yourself, through the grace of God and the inworking of the Holy Spirit in you, desirous to grow in holiness, the first step is then to make a clear cut with your old life.

Make this commitment, this consecration, before God to follow Christ's way. When we become members of the family of God, we put off the old life like old clothes that no longer befit us. We then put on Christ, the perfect human, as our standard bearer and model. 

"If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above", Paul begins in chapter 3 of Colossians, "where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." In baptism, we exchange our solidarities from the old humanity to the new humanity. By seeking the things that are above, we are to seek the things that are peculiar to Christ's character, since He is now sovereign King of heaven and earth.

The old humanity is the solidarity of Adam's people. The characteristics of this humanity are the sins Paul mentions in verses 5 and 8 of this chapter. Memorize them, for named sins are easier to avoid than unnamed ones. 

The new humanity is the solidarity of those who are incorporated into the Messiah, who is the True Man. The perfect human. In Christ, human beings can finally be what God intended them to be. With Christ, we are a new creation, redeemed for a life of holiness. And by committing to this new life in Christ, we begin to reflect on the things of heaven on earth. 

Our true citizenship is now in heaven, where Christ is King. And citizens of heaven are to behave according to the character of Christ, our Lord, and King. 

To seek holiness then is to seek to be more human. More of ourselves. More of who we truly are. 

P.S.: I owe much of this interpretation of Colossians to Bishop Wright's excellent commentary of Paul's letter to the Colossians.