After Multiple Failed "experiments" What? Series

Fourth Sunday of Lent 2024

God does not give up on human beings. That’s true even when He doesn’t seem like that is what is going on. We can remember the story of Noah, who lived in such a dissolute age that God wiped out humanity by a great flood, yet He saved one just man and his family. Noah built an ark of safety for man and beast, and his descendants repopulated the earth because God is merciful, not only just. Isn’t that great news? If the Lord just gave humans what they deserved, could anyone survive? No. God loves the world, and He does so contrary to His own benefit. The Father tasked the Son to become human, even unto death on a cross so that He might rise from death and by His Spirit working in the Church, raise up us and millions of believers to a new life, a self-giving life, in and with Him. That is the short version of the Jesus story: Jesus is Son of God become son of Mary, son of Man, for our salvation.

There were earlier what we might call “experiments” in the relations between God and His human creatures. The run-up to the story of Noah had followed the time of Adam and Eve and their offspring. God let humans alone with a natural law written in their hearts, and they messed up enough so He needed to start over with Noah and his spouse as the progenitors of a new human race. He gave a few more instructions to them, but humans messed them up, leading to the call of Abram and Sara to found a new society, the Hebrew nation. Grown large in Egypt, this collection of tribes left Egypt under the leadership of Moses, to whom God gave the explicit natural law called the Ten Commandments. The Hebrews messed that up and became oppressed by a number of other nations, so God raised up a new leader, David, to liberate them from their oppressors and become a king with a dynasty that would always do God’s will. David’s offspring then messed up, one generation after another, until the catastrophe we heard about in the book of Chronicles. Exile to Babylon, enslavement by the Chaldeans. Even after the return to Jerusalem, the Jewish leaders and people messed up, and a few hundred years later were back in thrall, this time to the Roman Empire.

The real problem was pretty clear. Human beings are unable by their own power to build a society of peace and justice. Pride and self-centeredness always stood in the way. God knew this all along; He just allowed the failed experiments of a couple of thousand years so humanity might learn from our mistakes that fundamental fact. We can’t redeem ourselves. The author of Genesis (6:5) recorded: “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” as God’s opinion, even before Noah built his ark.

So God, still loving the world as He had from the beginning, gave His only Son, His Beloved as He said at the Jordan to John the Baptist. He gave Jesus to the world to show us the way of life that would come from justice and peace. By Christ’s voluntary self-sacrifice on Calvary, He won forgiveness and grace for us. And, rising from death three days later, He would breathe the Holy Spirit on His apostles so the action of forgiveness and incorporation into Christ’s Mystical Body would continue until the end of time. He showed us the immeasurable riches of His grace, which saves us through faith as a free gift of God. For this, on our Sunday of Rejoicing, we meet together to give Him a sacrifice of praise. Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for all ages and into eternity. Amen.