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.
The denial of sin has given us a culture of injustice and death. Never in history have there been in any culture such a high proportion of people with sexually-transmitted diseases: products of adultery, pornography, fornication and cohabitation. Never in history, not even in the Nazi holocaust, has any nation destroyed each year so many of its offspring. Never in history has a justice system presided over so many systematic injustices, declared to be good so many evils. We are engaged in a moral experiment unprecedented in the world, in which humans are attempting to overthrow the very meaning of our most sacred realities: marriage, family, even human life itself. As we understand what is happening to us, we can really understand the origin of the dread that afflicts us, waking and sleeping. It is our own sin, yours and mine.
What is it that kept Abraham, Paul and Jesus from slipping into despair? What is it that can prevent us from surrender to the darkness? It is the understanding that though sin is powerful and death is dreadful, the loving mercy and kindness of God is eternal, and pervades the whole world. Jesus was not just a great man murdered by sinners, by us. He was mighty God become human for us sinners. He not only died, he rose from death, and invited us to become one with Him through the sacraments. We do not fear death because our baptism was our death to sin. We do not fear our own sins–even our big sins–because we know that God reconciles us to Himself through the sacrament of confession. You see why the great saints have recommended frequent confession, certainly every month or so. It tears us away from the dread, from the habit of sin. And we do not fear loneliness and abandonment either. Why? Because Jesus did not abandon us. He is here every day, looking like mere bread and wine. Our nourishment, our healing and forgiveness, our very God. He is working in us every time we come up and say “Amen,” I believe, I will follow you. He is transforming us into Himself. True images and likenesses of God.
The little child’s sobs have diminished into the steady breathing of slumber. Mom tucks him back into his blanket. No, not everything is alright, Mom thinks. No, the car payment is still overdue and the roof still leaks. But Jesus lives in us, and the little troubles can wait for tomorrow, because the big dread is gone, gone forever.
