For Whom would we Give Up our Life?

Fourth Sunday of Lent

There are a few people, but probably only a few, for whom the average person would give up his or her life.  I think any parent (any good parent, anyway) would give up his or her life for the child.  Siblings sometimes would give up their life for each other.  But generally the list of people for whom another person would give up his or her life is pretty small.

That is what is so impressive about those who serve in the military, law enforcement, or fire departments: they have made a commitment to give up their lives for total strangers.  It is quite humbling for me riding along with our MSP Troopers and seeing them walk up to cars, many with guns in them, and even while they practice safe approaches to the vehicle to limit their chance of being attacked, it still has happened all too frequently that they are in a situation where they may have to lay down their life, not only for a family member or friend, but for the citizens who may not even know they exist.  

If we think about it, giving up our life for a stranger is maybe a little easier if that person is good, maybe what we consider a productive member of society.  But what our first and second reading remind us this weekend is that we weren’t good.  This is an important aspect of salvation history: God loved us and entered into covenants with us to give us life and happiness, but we never lived up to our end of the bargain.  In the Garden of Eden, before we even had sin, we disobeyed God.  God saved Noah and his family because they followed God, but not long after that, Noah’s sons messed things up again.  Abraham did pretty well, but he still had inherited the sin of Adam and Eve that we call original sin.  Moses received the Law, the Ten Commandments from God, and no sooner had God given the Law, then the people broke it.  Even Moses himself couldn’t enter the Promised Land because he had disobeyed God on their journey through the desert.  King Saul disobeyed God, so David was chosen, but even David committed murder to cover up his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba.  Solomon started worshipping foreign gods, even though he had built the temple in Jerusalem, because of the influence of his foreign wives, and most of the kings who followed him were just as evil.  And so on and so on.  No one, not even the prophets, were good enough to earn heaven.  We all were, as St. Paul said in the second reading, “dead in our transgressions.”

And that’s what makes the familiar line we hear in the Gospel so powerful.  It’s not simply a sign that people hold up at football games behind the goal posts.  “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  ‘Of course he did!’ we might say to ourselves.  We are so used to God dying for us, to save us from everlasting death and Hell, that we might be a little numb to the power that is in those words.  We might die for family or friends.  We may even die for a good person.  But Jesus died for those who were His enemies: those who worked against Him starting with Adam and Eve, those who clamored for His death in Jerusalem, and for us who have nailed Jesus to the cross each time we sin.  The power of what Jesus did comes from the fact that we were, before baptism, the enemies of God, working against God, happy to do our own thing, rather than follow God.  Even the most just man, because of original sin, was still an enemy of God who could not earn salvation.

How comfortable have so many of us become with the killing of God.  We take it as a matter of fact, and it is in the sense that it has happened.  But it should not have happened.  Jesus is the light of the world, and came not to condemn us but to save us, but we preferred darkness; and so we tried to snuff out the light.  But the light conquered our darkness, as light always does.  

Think of the person who troubles you the most; maybe you even hate that person.  That person has harmed you in a way you find unforgivable.  And now you have to die for that person tomorrow so that he or she can live.  Really think about it; what would be your reaction?  What would be your honest reaction?  Jesus’ reaction was love; not begrudgingly, not with caveats and conditions, not as one forced to do what is for the best, but not the best for Him.  Jesus died for us because He loved us.  He let us kill Him with our sins because He loved us.  We did not earn salvation, nor can we; “this is not from you; it is the gift of God.”  

The question is whether or not we will respond to God’s gift of salvation.  Will we choose the light, or do we prefer darkness?  Do we believe in Jesus, follow Him, and so find eternal life, or will we be condemned because we do not believe?  We are not worth dying for.  But Jesus died for us anyway.  Accept that love of God that died for you so that you may live.  

Frequent Dying and Rising

Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

For as stupendous as raising someone from the dead is, it happens somewhat frequently in the Bible.  We heard about God raising the widow of Zarephath’s child through Elijah in our first reading, and Jesus raising the son of the widow from Nain in today’s Gospel.  Jesus also raises the daughter of Jairus, a synagogue official, and Lazarus.  After Jesus ascended into heaven, Peter raises a young girl named Dorkas (what an unfortunate name!), and Paul raises to life a person who falls out of a window after that person had fallen asleep because of how long Paul was preaching (there are dangers with preaching too long!).  I don’t know why, but I feel like that’s a lot of times.  About a month ago, I was given credit for raising someone from the dead by some of our firefighters, after I was riding with the firefighters and we responded to a call of someone having a heart attack, who seemed to miraculously wake up when we arrived (in reality, that person was an example of why you should never mix alcohol and a prescription narcotic).

But God truly does raise people from death on a regular basis, if we take time to think about it.  God raises from death those who are baptized.  In baptism, children, men and women are taken from being at enmity with God to being His children.  By baptism, people are buried with Christ–they die–so that they can rise with Him to new life.  By baptism, the old self has to die, like the grain of wheat, so that the new self, the person alive in Christ, can live.  

But that process of dying and rising does not stop on the day that we are baptized.  Each day we have the opportunity to die and rise.  It starts for some of us at the moment our eyes open.  At that moment we have the opportunity to die to our laziness and the comfort of our bed and rise to the new day that is before us.  There’s nothing wrong with hitting the snooze button if we have time, but at some point for many of us, we need to get up and get prepared for the day.  That’s why, at the beginning of my day, before my feet hit the floor of my bedroom, I say a short prayer: Mater mea, fiducia mea!–My Mother, my confidence!, and I entrust my entire day to Jesus through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  You could say any prayer that you like, but prayer is a great way to rise to new life.

Throughout our day there will be people trying to kill us.  Sometimes we are the people trying to kill others.  Hopefully not literally, but certainly figuratively.  What I mean by that is that we are all sinful, and we all give in to temptations, to not be disciples of Jesus.  Whether it’s others or ourselves, there’s gossip, slander, sharing secrets we have no business sharing, treating others as objects or as means to advancement, and the list could go on and on.  If we are the culprit, then we need to die to all of those sins.  We need them to be put to death, and Jesus does that by His suffering on the cross.  When we bite our lip, or treat someone kindly, we are dying to our fallen nature and its sinful tendencies.  If we are on the receiving end, then we die when we patiently suffer through them (correcting when necessary and prudent) instead of giving back what we received.  And whether we are putting to death our own tendencies, or suffering with Jesus because of others’ tendencies, new life, resurrection, is available for us, not only after our earthly life ends, but even on this side of eternity.

Because those who can accept suffering and unite it with Jesus do live happier lives.  They may still have the same sorrows, but they do not let the sorrows control their lives.  They cling to their new life in Christ, given to them in baptism, and live in the joy of the Resurrection, even in this vale of tears.  Which is the happier life: the one tossed about by uncontrollable forces, or the one who entrusts his or her life to God and stays on a steady course toward Him?

Everything in our nature rebels against death.  We were not made to die, but experience death because of sin.  We see that rejection of death and its power in our first reading and Gospel today.  But there is another kind of death, a healing death, a death to our sinful selves, a death in Christ, which is not contrary to who we are, but helps us to be the fullest person we were created to be.  May we allow our sinful natures to die with Christ on the cross, so that we can also rise with Him to new life, both in our daily lives, and especially in the life to come.