What does it mean to be redeemed by Christ?

So the Scriptures tell us that to follow Christ is to have a new mind.  That’s true isn’t it?  One of the key calls to the Christian, and a word we find in the Gospels again and again is metanoia.  Meta, meaning ‘after’ or beyond and nous, meaning ‘mind’.  So the word means going beyond your mind; changing your mind; I guess it could mean to be out of your mind.  What is it that Christ does that takes us out of our mind?  We often talk in our liturgy, and in our popular devotion, about Christ redeeming us or of our being redeemed by Christ.  Redeeming means to buy back or to gain, or regain something.  Christ redeems humanity we say.  That is, Christ gains back humanity for us.  What does it mean to gain back humanity?  It means that wherever humanity is being overlooked, wherever humanity is degraded, wherever humanity is suffering, wherever humanity is dying, wherever humanity is being violated, exploited or denied, Christ is there. Christ is the one who will not let humanity go. He reveals to us that God, the creator, has a loving and eternal intention for each and every human person.  When we dare to take out eye off humanity, when we fall into despair and hopelessness about our own lives, he is there looking us in the eye – not from the seat of judgement, but from the cross – from the place where human beings tried to kill his humanity.  From the cross then Christ gives us a new mind.

And when we have been captured by that new mind we cannot see the world in the same way.  To put on Christ, as we claim we do at our baptism, means that our minds are also shaped by the Christ who draws us back to humanity – our own and that of every one of our fellow human beings.  So our new Christ-mind calls us to stand with humanity and to call out and to cry out and to stand up whenever and wherever we see humanity degraded, violated, exploited, suffering and dying.  And our new mind in Christ also draws us beyond the eyes of the one who looks to us from the cross to the eyes of the one who greets us on Easter Sunday morning.  And the one who greets us, changes our behaviour.  For we cannot live now without the hope of resurrection for all of humanity.