Someone has Come to Fight | The Kerygma | Fr. John Riccardo

imagine the universe is a sand castle [Music] and every single grain of sand is a star how big would the castle be you'd be five miles high five miles long and five miles wide and every grain of sand is a star [Music] so when you and i pray most of us anyway we have this image of god in our mind whatever the image is it's wrong it's just wrong god is so much more massive so much more immense so much more powerful than anything we can conceive and in this universe that's 46 billion light years across that's 46 billion times 5.88 trillion miles across his eye is on one creature more than any other creature that's you all right come holy spirit last in the night everything we're gonna do we're good yep hi i'm father john ricardo i'm a priest for the archdiocese of detroit now the executive director of a new nonprofit called acts 29 whose vision is helping god get his world back because all of this is rightfully his and he's blessed you and me to be alive at this moment in time so that we can be instruments in his hands to help bring everything back into the place where god wanted it to be you were born for this moment and so was i so let's ask the holy spirit to continue to give us all the grace all the courage all the wisdom all the charity that we need [Music] so paul says about the gospel the gospel is the power of god for salvation he doesn't mean matthew mark luke and john he means the gospel right what's the basic proclamation of the gospel what we would call the kerygma right just the greek word for proclamation my experience as a priest 23 years now is that i don't think most people really hear the gospel i personally think it would do well for every parish every catholic school every university every whatever to spend some time very deliberately very intentionally every year making sure we just proclaim the gospel there's a couple reasons for this most importantly because the gospel is power not the messenger of the gospel is power the proclamation of the gospel is power it changes lives the greek word paul uses there is the word from which we get the word dynamite in other words the gospel isn't just news let alone ordinary news the gospel is extraordinary unexpected life-changing news so let me give an image imagine it's june 7th 1944 and you and i live in france and so for the last three years four years our country's been occupied held under demonic tyrannical oppression we've lost families family members friends they've been captured they've been in prison they've put in concentration camps they've been killed and we have no life at least certainly no life as we used to have and no prospect for hope there's no way out our army is capitulated and no one so it seems is coming to save us and so one day you and i are sitting there wearing coffee and the paper boy throws the newspaper into the room and i open up the paper and i read to you as you ask me hey what happened yesterday in the news and i say oh not much allies landed at normandy [Music] would i read it that way would that be ordinary news for you and me that would be extraordinary news right the allies landed like someone's come to save us someone's come to rescue us someone's come to fight so what is this kerygma this message this proclamation which is supposed to overwhelm us to the point where somebody surrenders their life entirely to jesus and faith it's four parts right so the first part we would simply we would usually call the goodness of creation uh the second part would be sin and its consequences the third part would be the salvific action of jesus in the fourth part would be our response that's rather dry to me we could ask it in four questions all of which are really profound why is there something rather than nothing that's a huge question why is everything so obviously messed up what if anything has got done about it and if he's done something about it how is it that i should respond that's still a mouthful so here's how i make it repeatable the krigma's four words created captured rescued and response i'll try to highlight a couple things so the goodness of creation oh why is there something rather than nothing so the biblical answer to that is because god out of his love willed everything into existence and he did it without any effort whatsoever he just spoke and things came into being which is so unlike every other ancient near eastern story of creation people often think that the creation stories in genesis 1 and 2 are just like more or less the other pagan myths there's nothing like genesis 1 and 2 in the pagan myths they have many gods they're all at war with each other they're not even in charge they're actually underneath the fates they make man male at a certain point not for any dignity but to be their slave they make woman for one reason children pleasure so in a world like that what do you got you got no hope there's no ultimate meaning there's no point to marriage there's no point to sexuality there's no point to work so what do you live for you look for money pleasure and power right what else would you live for so despair just reigns into that world god reveals in genesis 1 and 2 which we have to be careful we understand how to read because they're like inspired poetry so they're true without being literally true you know that there's two stories of creation they're in back to back chapters and they're different it's like god telling you don't read these literally understand ask the spirit to help you understand the truths that are being revealed and the truths would be many but they'd include these right there's one god and he's really good and everything he may be made out of love and the highlight of everything he made is the human person male and female who together image him and he made them for friendship friendship with him and friendship with each other [Music] and the ultimate destiny for the human person is to be divinized which is why every human person is the church's special interest group so that's the answer to the question why is there something rather than nothing is because god willed it into being now here's the problem something has obviously happened to this creation so the way i capture this right and i mean this quite literally is what the hell happened to this world this universe which god who is good made there's only one god right so how did everything get messed up what happened the word here is captured so the church teaches us that one of the creatures that god makes [Music] rebels against god the key here for me is to understand why this creature was an angel right it's a creature made by god so he's just a creature right but he's the most spectacular creature his sin is pride but his motive for rebelling is envy what's envy envy's more than jealousy right it's this certain profound sadness over the well-being the good fortune of another who's he envious of it's not god it's you and me somehow right the church has taught this in lots of different ways over the years the whole plan that god has which is going to culminate in you and i the human person being demonized partaking of his own divine nature ii peter 1 4 for all eternity sharing in god's own life this plan is unveiled before the angels and this creature finds that intolerable and so he goes to war not against god against the creature god loves the most and so at the very beginning of our race uh the beginning of our history recorded in genesis 3 this again inspired poem we see what the enemy's strategy is and the strategy the enemy i think anyway boils down to this god is not a father or at least not a good father and you can't trust him and he's holding out on you and he doesn't really love you and if you would just be done with him you could find happiness that's not just what he did with adam and eve it's what he does with you and me and every temptation he casts god in suspicion so the consequences of the fall are not just separation from god the consequences of the fall is that we as a race unknowingly sold ourselves into slavery to powers that we can't compete against the power of sin the power of death into satan's grip and into hell jesus in one of his enigmatic parables in matthew mark and luke talks about how a strong man when he guards his possessions his possessions are safe jesus calls him the ruler of this world paul calls him the prince of the power of the air the god of this world [Music] but when someone jesus says stronger than him overcomes him well then his possessions can go free so why does god become a man god becomes a man i would argue to go to war to rescue us from the powers that we can't compete against sin death satan and hell and he does it in a most magnificent and clever way he does it in disguise because satan won't fight god he knows he can't beat god and so god disguises himself takes a human nature becomes one of us all for the purpose of engaging the enemy in battle because god became a man to fight for us to take back what is properly his the creature that he loves the most made in his image and likeness destined to partake of his divine life you matter so much to god i matter so much to god i don't know why that he thinks i'm worth rescuing and he didn't send an angel to do it he did it himself and he did it at the cost of his life look at jesus hanging on a cross right now and ask yourself is he the hunted or the hunter well that would look pretty obvious right here's a man naked nailed to a tree but who is that on the cross that's god made man how do you nail god to a cross there's only one way for god to get on a cross he has to want to be there why would he want to be there [Music] try to understand there's three ways classically of understanding the passion we tend to talk about two of the three ways so the first way we either talk about on the cross god is showing us how much he loves us right so god so loved the world he sent his only begotten son so that we would not perish but have eternal life we all know that right john 3 16 the guy behind home played in the world series games that's true blessed be god that's true so on the cross jesus is in fact showing us how much god loves us but that's not the only thing that's happening there so a second thing would be well jesus on the cross is making atonement for us taking into himself all of the sins of all the men and women who ever lived on the history of the world but oftentimes you ask someone to look at the cross and and they'll look at the cross and they'll say something like i don't think i'm that bad a guy and i am to be sure and so are you don't be falsely modest here but that doesn't move many people but it's true so he loves us and he's making atonement for us but the third way is the way the fathers of the church used to prefer to talk about what jesus was doing on the cross and what jesus was doing on the cross was going to war so from the moment the garden of gethsemane on jesus's divinity is more and more and more cloaked he sweats blood he's arrested he's chained he's slapped this is god we're talking about the one who made the universe that's 46 billion light years across he's hauled before a puppet king he's judged he's condemned he's stripped naked he's scourged almost to death he carries a cross he's crowned with thorns he's nailed to the cross why for one reason to draw the prey close god's engaging the enemy why he's doing this because you matter to him and i for some reason i can't fathom matter to him like that's the gospel so in colossians 1 paul talks about how what's happened in our lives as a result of jesus's life death and resurrection is that i have been transferred rescued from the dominion the lordship the rule the government of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved son so imagine imagine growing up in a home that was just abusive as i'll get out night comes and you kind of sneak into the house cause plates fly quite literally and outside across the street every night you can hear a family playing in the front yard and a father playing with his kids [Music] and you listen to that with tremendous jealousy and years go on and then one day you're the only one at home and you hear a knock on the door and you open the door and it's the dad from across the street and he says would you like to come live with us and you don't even pack that's adoption that's what happened in baptism i moved from a tyrant to the home of a good father that's colossians 1 huh colossians 2 though paul writes this paul says that jesus has or god has disarmed more literally stripped naked the principalities and powers what are the principalities and powers sin death satan and hell making he says a public spectacle of them humiliating them triumphing over them by his cross now we read those words and you know if you're like me you try to visualize what he means by that but every roman or every person in the roman empire would know what paul is talking about because triumph is a really precise particular word in the roman empire it's like a mega parade in an empire filled with parades there's very precise conditions under which this can happen and it usually involves in one way or another right the emperor riding into town into rome seated on his chariot or standing in his chariot surrounded by his soldiers returning from battle and he's got all the people that he's captured in battle all the goods and spoils of of the place that they've you know looted and pillaged and he's bringing all this into rome julius caesar shortly after he uh he finishes the gallic war this eight year battle with the king of goal up in france capture the king they bring him in front of caesar as he's standing there the roman legion comes they slit his robes and suddenly the king of gaul is standing naked in front of everybody they force him to his knees they bring the roman eagle they make him kiss it as a sign of the fact that you lost they stand him up they chain his arms behind his back and they put him in a cage and then they begin to march back to rome this is the beginning of a triumph and then in comes caesar into rome with all the people that he's captured at the very end of the line is a cage with a man in it with no clothes on and a sign above his head that says this is the one who used to threaten us he won't threaten us anymore that's what paul says jesus has done to the enemy brothers and sisters um that is not ordinary news that is extraordinary news as a friend of mine always puts it those who have been rescued go and rescue others that's what we're supposed to be involved in god for some reason brought someone into your life which was the means by which you in faith surrendered to jesus and now he wants to use you to go and rescue others we do that by first proclaiming the gospel which is power created captured rescued response and then by teaching them all the things that complement them so as we do that let's pray that the holy spirit will help us more profoundly to understand what it is that god has done for us to be overwhelmed and then to proclaim it in such a way that others too will be overwhelmed and they too will be brought into the life-changing encounter that is [Music] discipleship you

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Keywords: Kerygma, The Kerygma, Fr. John Riccardo, ACTS XXIX, helping God get his world back, god’s plan, creation story, Jesus, Christ, God, preach the gospel, priest, evangelization, go and make disciples, Kingdom of God, Gospel, being catholic, how to be Catholic, catechesis, catechism, proclaim the gospel, bible, scripture, salvation, faith, love, Ave Maria Radio, Religious Order, Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, Catholic, Catholicism, Catholic Education, DSMMEVocations, ACTSXXIX

Id: XqafKxFiktQ

Length: 19min 59sec (1199 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 24 2020