Luke 12:8-9 “in a snailshell”
Saturday of the Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
©️2021 Gloria M. Chang
I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God. But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God.
Luke 12:8-9 (NABRE)
Also I say to you, whoever confesses Me before men, him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God. But he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God.
Luke 12:8-9 (NKJV)
Confessors
A true friend is tested by adversity, like gold refined by fire (Proverbs 17:17). In a world increasingly hostile to Christianity, friends of Christ acknowledge (confess) him even at great personal risk.
“Confess” (from Latin confiteri) translates the Greek verb homologeó (to speak the same; to agree; publicly declare), an ancient verb applied to the public profession of faith in Christ.
In the early Church, “confessors” designated an entire class of saints, distinguished from martyrs, in that they persevered in the public profession of Christ to the end of their lives in spite of persecution, torture, imprisonment, or exile. The white martyrdom of confessors was a day by day “Yes!” to the Lord without flagging.
The first confessors in the Church were St. Anthony the Abbot, St. Hilarion, St. Philogonus, St. Athanasius, and Pope St. Sylvester. The Eastern Church continues to celebrate confessors among their customary saint titles.
A Gift of the Holy Spirit
No one confesses Christ by sheer will power or intelligence. The courage of a confessor flows as pure gift and grace from the divine wellspring within.
Therefore, I tell you that nobody speaking by the spirit of God says, “Jesus be accursed.” And no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:3
…whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
John 4:14
The Heavenly Jerusalem
The spiritual vision of confessors penetrates far beyond the visible realm to “Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel” (Hebrews 12:22-24).
Considering all earthly gain as “rubbish” compared to the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus their Lord, confessors embrace the Cross, the gateway to heaven (Philippians 3:8).
The Book of Life
In the final pages of the Bible, the prophetic message of Revelation, delivered by an angel to John, recaps the words of Christ in Luke:
The victor will thus be dressed in white, and I will never erase his name from the book of life but will acknowledge his name in the presence of my Father and of his angels.
Revelation 3:5 (NABRE)
He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.
Revelation 3:5 (NKJV)
Amen. Alleluia.
If we confess, “Jesus Christ is Lord!”
Christ confesses us in the heav’nly court.
Traditional Chinese Translation
《基督的朋友認定祂》
如果我們認：「耶穌基督是主！」
基督在天庭也必認我們。
Confess to the person I know,
Acknowledge my deep love.
Witness that love by action,
Then my faith will grow.
Dear GMC, thank you for helping us cultivate a disciple’s heart. It helps along the way to have people like you with wit and wisdom. And a snail too, whose powerful message still reverberates in my heart and sends me to bow down and confess, “Jesus Christ is Lord.”