Choose Life And Goodness Series

Thursday after Ash Wednesday 2024

Today we begin our solemn preparation for the Pasch–the annual commemoration of the Passover of Jesus. He gave Himself freely up to an unjust death for our redemption, and left us sacraments in His assembly–His Church–for all who would believe in Him. And the first word we hear from God is very much like the critical challenge from Torah: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.” The way of sin vs the way of life. We’ll be looking at the history of the Israelite people, a nation chosen by God in the beginning to show the rest of the people of the world how to live rightly and how to worship rightly. That was and is the way of life.

But understand it is not the broad way, not the easy way. The way of life requires us to turn our backs on sin, but that means getting our passions under control. The apostle John wrote to us: “all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.” When those natural appetites get out of control, then we are in an “occasion of sin.” Sexual intimacy is good, but only with one’s spouse, oriented to marital unity and procreation and education of children. Beautiful things are good, but if they lead to heaped up piles of beautiful possessions while we let the poor go without basic necessities, they are an offense against justice. Acquiring political power can be good, but only if that power is used for the common good of all. Any natural desire can be abused.

Abusing our natural desires and powers can lead us into a real moral pit. Isaiah tells us: “Woe unto them that call evil good, And good evil; That change darkness into light, And light into darkness; That change bitter into sweet, And sweet into bitter!” Suppose you develop a habit of sexual sin, like self-abuse or sodomy. The first thing you may notice is that you can’t pray. Why? Because praying to God involves lifting our minds and hearts to someone else, but our habit of sin has left us turned in on ourselves. We see an evil action, because it gives us pleasure for a while, as being good. We have to convince ourselves that we are exempt somehow from God’s moral law written on our hearts. Tell yourself that evil is good and good is evil enough times and you actually find yourself with a rewired brain. You get to where you can’t think straight (strait) and routinely see all kinds of bad actions as either good or morally neutral. Some people complain that St. Paul’s letters focus too much on the Christian remaining chaste, whether in or out of a marital relationship. But St. Paul knew the truth. The one who is unchaste is sinning against his own body, against her own body.

Let’s consider a couple of kingly names from Hebrew history: Ahab and Ahaz. The first of these was king of the northern kingdom, and under the influence of his pagan wife, Jezebel, he built a temple in his royal city to Baal, the major-league false god of the area. He and his wife also persecuted the prophets of the Lord to such an extent that Elijah complained, wrongly, that he was the only one left. Ahab’s rule was really bad for the people of his kingdom. It went into steady moral and social decline, exhibited by twelve kings in a hundred fifty years. They had turned their backs on the true God and practiced evil living and false worship and so were exiled from their land by Assyrian conquest.

Ahaz was king of the southern kingdom of Judah, centered on Jerusalem. Scripture records only three faithful kings after David. The rest failed either in right living or right worship, or both. We know, for instance, that David’s son, Solomon, built shrines for his many foreign wives to worship their false gods. And even the good kings seem to have neglected bringing up their children in right living and right worship. Ahaz, for instance, almost certainly offered his firstborn son, who would have been his heir and successor, as a burnt sacrifice to the god Moloch or Baal.

The best example in David’s kingdom may have been Ahaz’s faithful son, Hezekiah. But Hezekiah’s son was Manasseh, probably the worst of the lot, murderer of prophets and worshiper of the Assyrian gods. He reigned for fifty-five years. His grandson, Josiah, was a faithful king, probably because he took the counsel of faithful priests. He brought back right worship to the Temple, which Manasseh had profaned horribly. But after him his descendants let everything go and Judah, too, was conquered and exiled to Babylon.