When I looked over the Gospel reading for this Sunday, I immediately thought of something that happened on June 16, 1858: Abraham Lincoln referred to this quotation of Jesus when he talked about the division between slave and free states in the United States.
When Jesus came, he underscored the division that exists within us of striving toward God, yet being held back by original Sin that has been present since our ancestors turned away from God in disobedience. Indeed, the Gospel messages starts with the reality of how sin has totally wrecked us and our relationship with God. Only in Jesus do we have hope, for He is the One Who has tied up the strong man and plundered the house, which one commentary on the Gospel reading in Mark I read indicated is Jesus's tying up Satan so that He can set everything right.
And so we have hope that although our bodies and our world are decaying due to the effects of sin, our life-giving relationship with Jesus sustains us for Eternity, even as we abound in graces now, so that we strive to live in the way Jesus has taught, and truly enter into the relationship of being His family.
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