Big Lies, Little Lies And Hope Series

2nd Sunday in Lent

The child was about eighteen months old, fast asleep in his little bed. Mom and Dad had just retired for the night, pleased that their son was growing so fast and learning so much. But as they were falling into that twilight state between wakefulness and slumber, a horrible screech lurched them to their feet. The little boy was screaming uncontrollably, so that it took what seemed like hours to calm him and get him back to sleep. Momma’s calming voice did it, of course, as it always did, singing him back into dreamland, and soothing his spirit “Everything’s alright, honey, everything’s going to be alright.”

It was a lie, of course. It was the same lie her mom had told her when she was about the same age. “Everything’s alright; everything’s going to be alright.” The calming words ignored the looming bankruptcy or the troubled marriage, the failing business or the older brother on drugs. It certainly made light of the wars across the planet and the limping 401(k) portfolio and the taxes that came due at the end of the month. But mom and dad, like every mom and dad, believe that if they told the truth, the whole truth, nobody in the family would ever get any sleep.

Does the divine author of this Bible understand? Does this Word of God have anything to say to us who wonder what tomorrow will bring, or if there will be a personal tomorrow? Is this book just a series of pie-in-the-sky fairy tales? Is this celebration called the Mass merely a dance around reality? Does God really care? I know we all wonder that sometimes.

But look at these readings if you wonder that: “a dread and great darkness fell on Abram.” St. Paul tells us that every day of his ministry he was dogged by opponents who tempted him to give up, to surrender to the darkness and despair. And Jesus–what about Jesus himself? Even on the mountain of transfiguration, close to God, surrounded by his friends, and conversing with Moses and Elijah, the key figures of the Old covenant, even there he was talking about what he would suffer in Jerusalem. Even in the radiance of the Godhead Himself, he walked with an understanding that he would be tortured and murdered by the people he loved–by you and me–and rejected by everyone. God Himself, who had given everything to us, by us spat upon, mocked, beaten, and dragged off to be crucified. And in the midst of that realization, the Father’s voice was heard. And did that voice tell Jesus “everything’s alright–everything’s going to be alright”? No. The Father told the truth, that this Jesus is the Beloved, the son who would go to His death to set all things right, the suffering servant who would give up everything–dignity, health, strength and even His life, to make us well, to make us whole.

We know what the great dread is that disturbed Abram, the dread that keeps us awake at night. It’s an awareness that every man and woman on earth has. All of us know intuitively that we are more than flesh and blood, that we are designed for more than this material life. We all have a yearning deep inside us, a feeling of incompleteness, a feeling like emptiness. Oh, we deny it and try to numb it with alcohol or drugs or sex or busy work, but it keeps coming back stronger every time. We are made for more than what we can see, taste, touch, hear, and feel. St. Augustine says it best: we are made for God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in God. It’s like there’s a God-shaped hole in our hearts, and only God can fill that hole.

But we also know, instinctively, that we can’t fill up that hole ourselves, that we can’t force anything or anyone to make us complete. And if we are really honest with ourselves, we know that our own sins stand in the way of that union with God. Not somebody else’s sins–my sins, your sins. Little acts of disobedience, little gossiping, little lying, little larceny, little lusts. Given into, unrepented, these little disobediences lead us to the big lies, the big betrayals, the big character assassinations.

It’s been popular over the past forty years or so to deny sin. Well, it’s sure easier to deny sin than to repent. Oh, that comment was innocently meant; it’s her fault if it hurt her feelings. Oh, that’s a big corporation, they won’t miss that little electronic game I ripped off. Oh, those women in that magazine pose for those pictures for money; they did it voluntarily; it’s no big deal to surround myself with pornography. Oh, it’s too bad my predatory pricing put that little family business under; that’s the law of economics–survival of the fittest.