Your Resolutions or God’s Resolve
2009 is now upon us. What will this year bring? Did you make any New Year’s Resolutions? Many people engage in that practice. Maybe this is the year that you will finally kick the smoking habit. Maybe you are going to resolve to eat less, exercise more, and lose weight. You will try to spend more time with your spouse and your children as that is part of your vocation as husband and wife and father and mother. Could this be the year that you make the resolve of “being in the Word” daily? Whatever the case may be, some of these resolves will be met while others will leave us seeming like a failure.
Long ago, Adam and Eve had made a resolve of their own, and they ended up disobeying God. The fruit was eaten and the blame game began to be played. Doesn’t that sound similar, we might admit to doing something wrong, but there was always a reason.
After God confronted Adam and Eve, He resolved to do the following: “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” Genesis 3:15. God’s resolve dealt with what Adam and Even needed, namely the forgiveness of their sins. That resolve also included you and me and all people.
God continued to unwrap that resolve in terms of how it would come about and what it would mean. We read in Isaiah 43:25, “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake; And I will not remember your sins.” In Isaiah 44:22 we are told: “I have wiped out your transgressions like a thick cloud, And your sins like a heavy mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.” What wonderful Gospel we have proclaimed to us as God is “running the verbs.” He is coming to us and resolving to do that which only He can do.
The angel told Joseph, “And she will bear and Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21. God’s resolve was brought to completion through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus. The resolve of God was applied to us in the waters of Holy Baptism.
