Daniel 3:14-20, 91-92, 95 (NRSVCE)
We all know the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Or, for those of us who were Veggie Tales fans growing up, we might know them as Rack, Shack, and Benny. For those of you who are not Catholic, you may be confused on the verses noted above. “Daniel 3 only has 30 verses!” Catholic Bibles retain the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Holy Children. In a Protestant Bible, these are removed, and you will see our Daniel 3:91 being the same as your Daniel 3:24. Anyway, now that the confusion is cleared up, back to the reflection!
King Nebuchadnezzar demands that these three worship a statue he had built and they have been refusing. He gives them one more chance, threatening them to throw them in a fiery furnace if they do not. They refuse again, instead reminding the king that they worship only God. They even make it a point to make the king aware that God has the power to save them from the furnace, if He so chooses, and that even if He does not, they will still worship no one and nothing but God. They are willing to die a brutal, torturous death for God. In a rage, the king has them thrown in the furnace. After some time passes, he hears singing coming from the furnace, and is astonished to find not three, but four men standing in the flames! The king realizes that this God of Rack, Shack, and Benny is far greater than any of his gods, and begins praising God. The strength of faith that these three men had was incredible. They know what will happen if they refuse the king, but they are not quite sure what will happen if they trust in God. You can see it in their reply. “If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us . . . But if not . . .” They don’t know that God will protect them. And they don’t seem particularly concerned about whether He will or not. They only care that God is the only one who is to be worshiped. They know this, and they are willing to die rather than to break His commandments. That takes a tremendous amount of faith. We can only hope that God would give us all the strength to do the same, were we to find ourselves in that situation. Here’s the thing, though. We do find ourselves in that situation! We are all sinners, and it is because of sin that we are all doomed to die. And not only die, but suffer the eternal fires of Hell. All because of our sin. Our only recourse is faith, to trust in God, to obey His commandments, to cling to Him with all that we are. It is only God who can save us. These three men understood that. Nebuchadnezzar saw a fourth man in the fire who “has the appearance of a god.” Other translations render this “is like the Son of God.” (KJV) It may have been an angel in there with them, but I think it makes much more sense to say it was Christ. It is Christ who saves us from the fires of Hell, so long as we trust and have faith in Him. These three are saved from the fires of a furnace yes, but as a foreshadowing of the ultimate salvation found in Christ. It seems only fitting that we see Christ in this story! I hope and pray that I might have faith as strong as that of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. By their faith they were saved from the fires of a Babylonian furnace, but by our faith we will be saved from the eternal fires of Hell! John 8:21-30 (NRSVCE) Again he said to them, “I am going away, and you will search for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” Then the Jews said, “Is he going to kill himself? Is that what he means by saying, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” He said to them, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.” They said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Why do I speak to you at all? I have much to say about you and much to condemn; but the one who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” They did not understand that he was speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me. And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.” As he was saying these things, many believed in him. “When you have lifted up the Son of Man”
Jesus is telling his followers here about what is going to happen to him. He is telling them about the cross. They don’t understand. Two thousand years later, and we are still having trouble understanding it. What is it that actually happened on the cross? We know that by it we are saved. But how? Jesus gives us a hint in this passage. He says that he does nothing on his own. He does and says only as the Father has instructed him to. He is completely and utterly obedient to the will of the Father, obedient even unto death. (Phillippians 2:8) So the question is: How does Jesus’s obedience save us? For this, we have to look at a couple of things. When God created the world, He created Adam to watch over it. Adam was responsible for keeping it, protecting it, nurturing it. Adam was to do the work of God, and take good care of God’s creation. Adam disobeyed, and thus man and the world became afflicted by sin and death. Jesus, however, is the New Adam. He has come to heal the world, to save it from death. This is why the Son became man, and not a fish or oatmeal or something. St. Paul says that just as sin entered the world through one man, “so by one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:19) Jesus succeeds where Adam failed, and then some, as Jesus doesn’t merely keep, protect, and nurture the world. He heals it. But let’s get into specifics here, with the help of St. Anselm. Mostly in his Cur Deus Homo, or Why God Became Man, I will simply link the relevant Wikipedia article here to keep things easier. Adam disobeyed God, the source of all things. To God all glory and honor is due. But how do we honor someone? When the commandments say “honor your father and mother,” what do they mean? One thing that means is obedience. By disobeying God, Adam did not give honor to God as God was due. So not only did he offend God’s justice, by taking what was due to God, he offended God’s honor, through disobedience. Because of Adam, man owes God a debt. And God is perfectly just, he can’t simply let this slide. This debt must be repaid, or more appropriate to where I’m going with this: satisfaction must be made. This is a debt which man cannot possibly satisfy. Especially when you consider that when you satisfy a debt, especially a debt to God, you do not simply return what was taken. A thief does not simply return the items he stole and we call it even. That would be in keeping with justice, but there is an offense of honor here too. So we, at the very least, require that the thief apologize and perhaps give something more to the offended party (like community service) to satisfy that debt of honor. So even if man could satisfy the debt of justice (he can’t), he definitely cannot satisfy the debt of honor. For what can man give to God beyond what he already owes? Nothing, for everything man has he owes to God. Man is, in technical theological jargon, “in a pickle.” So the Father sent His Son. But, because it is only just that debt be satisfied by the one who owes that debt, it must be man who makes satisfaction. So the Son became man. And the Son lived in perfect obedience to the Father, obedience even unto death. Now you have an infinite being, the Son, who is also man, making an offering of satisfaction for the debt that man owes. That the Son is infinite is crucial here. The Son is able to not only restore the demands of justice—what is owed by man—but He is also able to offer more. Thus both justice and honor are satisfied. This is why Jesus says, on the cross, “It is finished.” (John 19:30) The Son has satisfied the debt man owed to God. And how? Through obedience to the Father. Matthew 1:16, 18-21, 24 (NASB) Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife. Today is the Solemnity of St. Joseph, spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary. So it’s fitting that we focus our attentions today on the actions of Joseph. It’s interesting, not a single word from Joseph’s mouth is uttered in Scripture, and yet we know much about him from his actions, particularly in this passage. He saw that Mary was with child and, like anyone would, expected it was by another man. But rather than accuse her, drag her out in public and proclaim her an adulterer (and all the punishments that entails), he wanted to send her away secretly. He was a “righteous man,” he loved Mary and did not want to see her shamed. He was a gentle man, and did not wish her harm. So he was going to simply secret her away, so that she could raise her child in peace. That alone tells us much about his character, and the depth of the love he had for Mary.
But then Joseph gets a glorious vision! An angel appears to him in a dream! Joseph is told to still his fear, and to take Mary as his wife, for the child is Jesus the Messiah. It is not recorded, but I imagine Joseph woke in a cold sweat, bewildered by what he had just heard. He is to act as father to the Son of God, conceived of the Holy Spirit! If he wasn’t afraid before, he must be now! That is a tremendous amount of pressure! If an angel were to say to me that I would be responsible for raising the savior of the world, I would probably run away screaming in terror at the very idea. But just as we saw the depth of Joseph’s love in the first part of this passage, in this we see the depth of his faith. Joseph does not hesitate. He hears the word from God, and he obeys. He trusts fully in God’s will, and with no thought of what others might think of him raising another man’s child (which is surely what everyone thought), or marrying an adulterous woman (again, what everyone must have thought), he put God’s will before all. It’s easy to talk about having faith in small things, but it’s much more difficult to speak of giving yourself over fully to the will of God, with no thought of what you would prefer. This is what St. Joseph did. The Gospels leave Joseph silent for a reason. His silence speaks volumes to the kind of man he was. He did not live for himself, he had no interest in receiving praise and honors. He lived for God and for his family. He cared only that God’s will be done, and that his wife and her child were loved and cared for. St. Joseph is an icon for fathers and husbands everywhere. In a time in which we seem increasingly confused about what “masculinity” means, St. Joseph is there to provide the shining example. John 12:20-33 (NRSVCE)
“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” This is an interesting thing to think about. When a grain of wheat sprouts, it doesn’t “die” in the sense of no longer having life. Rather it sprouts into new life, a fruitful life. So what does Jesus mean when he says that the grain “dies?”
One way to look at it would be that the grain of wheat is, as a grain, self-contained. It is closed in on itself, and does not interact with things around it. In order to sprout and bear fruit, it must in essence die to itself. It must intermingle with the soil and nutrients around it so that it can begin its fruitful life. This “dying to self” is what I think Jesus is talking about here, at least in one sense. Someone who lives only for themselves will not produce any fruits for the Kingdom. He must instead follow the greatest commandment—he must love God and love his neighbor. He must die to his selfishness, so that in accepting the graces of God he can sprout into one who produces fruits for the Kingdom. He must live selflessly, and in so doing is no longer just a single man, but member of the Christ’s Church. This is why Jesus says “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Those who live for themselves will die—that is, they will end up in the eternal death that is Hell. Their selfishness causes them to close themselves off from the grace of God, and from the saving power of Christ. But if we “hate our life,” meaning if we live not for ourselves but for God and for our neighbors, we will open ourselves to those graces, accepting the offer of salvation from Christ, and we will have eternal life. More than that, we will produce fruit! We will join with the Church in the act of building the Kingdom of God, most importantly through preaching the Gospel! But this will only happen if we forsake our selfishness, if we die to ourselves so that we can live for God. The past few days have seen us bombarded by verses about the dangers of pride. Now Jesus tells us concretely what it means if we forsake our pride and selfishness. If we open ourselves up to Christ, as the grain of wheat opens itself up to the nutrients of the soil, we will be given new life, a fruitful life. We will be transformed by the grace of God, and that transformation entails eternal life. John 7:40-53 (NRSVCE) When they heard these words, some in the crowd said, “This is really the prophet.” Others said, “This is the Messiah.” But some asked, “Surely the Messiah does not come from Galilee, does he? Has not the scripture said that the Messiah is descended from David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?” So there was a division in the crowd because of him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. Then the temple police went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why did you not arrest him?” The police answered, “Never has anyone spoken like this!” Then the Pharisees replied, “Surely you have not been deceived too, have you? Has any one of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, which does not know the law—they are accursed.” Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before, and who was one of them, asked, “Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?” They replied, “Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you? Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee.” Then each of them went home An encounter with Jesus elicits a response, and that response reveals condition of our hearts. Notice that the crowd is divided. Some are quick to accept that Jesus is who He says He is—the Messiah come to save Israel. Others want him arrested, because they trusted instead on their own understanding. Jesus was not what they expected in a Messiah, and therefore He must be a charlatan. Just as we discussed yesterday, their pride blinded them to the truth. But the real meat of this story comes in the next section, when we see how God softens the hearts of some of those who encountered Jesus.
The “temple police” had been dispatched by the priests and the Pharisees to arrest Jesus. Jesus was a threat to their power, to their self-righteousness. He was an offense that demanded retaliation. But these guards disobeyed their orders. They were moved by the words of Christ, their hearts were softened so that they could begin to see who Jesus truly was, instead of the lies which had been fed to them by the priests and the Pharisees. Notice that it is those in positions of power who call Jesus a deceiver, and call the crowd ignorant and accursed. Those who stand to lose the most if Jesus is who He says He is are the ones who most stubbornly cling to their pride. Not only is this offense dealt by Jesus, but now their own guards have begun to slip out of their control! Surely they are about to dispatch those guards again to ensure the job is done this time. But then we see an unexpected turn. Nicodemus, one of their own, comes to Christ’s defense. You may remember Nicodemus from earlier in the Gospel of John. It was Nicodemus that Jesus was talking to when He uttered the famous words of John 3:16. A great leader amongst the Pharisees, Nicodemus is one of the last the Pharisees would have expected to side with Jesus. And yet, God worked to soften the heart of Nicodemus—to make him capable of understanding Christ’s call and purpose. And in a much more extraordinary way than those guards, as Nicodemus was so moved that he sought Christ out! His encounter with Christ changed him, so much so that now when all seem determined to put Christ to the sword, Nicodemus stands in their way. “Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing.” You can almost hear the frustration in the voices of the Pharisees in their reply. They know Nicodemus is right, that it would be unlawful to take Jesus out without a proper trial. They scoff at his defense, and accuse him of being a Galilean himself (for who else would defend a Galilean?). But Nicodemus spoke the truth, and was a well-respected leader in their circles, so they reluctantly go home. It is impossible to have an encounter with Christ and not be moved. The “ignorant” crowds open themselves to Him, the guards defy their masters because of Him, even Nicodemus comes to His defense. But still, the prideful recoil. The priests and the Pharisees spread lies about Him. They refuse to accept Him, because to do so would be to admit their own wrongdoings and that their faith is not in God, but in themselves. Are we the same? Are we willing to open our hearts to Christ, or are we so prideful that we will cling to our own understanding? Wisdom 2:1a, 12-22 (NRSVCE) For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, “Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God’s child, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture, so that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected.” Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them, and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hoped for the wages of holiness, nor discerned the prize for blameless souls; Today’s reading is powerfully prophetic! You can see Jesus in every line! Jesus is the righteous man who opposes the actions of sinners, who has knowledge of God, who is the Son of God, and who was rejected to the point of torture and death because the world did not believe. He was mocked and insulted, because He was an offense to the ways to the ways of the world.
This all speaks to what we heard Jesus say yesterday, regarding why He was rejected. He was offensive. “The very sight of him is a burden to us.” And why? “We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean.” Jesus does not hold back when it comes to sin. Everyone’s sin is laid bare before Him, and He makes clear that there is no place for sin in the Kingdom of God. He stands as judge over the world, and this judge has the power of perfect justice. There will be no sin unpunished, no offense unreconciled. But this means that even the most self-righteous “holy” men will be held to account. This is offensive to our pride. We tend to think of our ourselves as holy, and I don’t mean that in a “We can do no wrong” kind of way. I mean that we overlook our own sins, we hide them from each other and more importantly from ourselves, because we think “Well, it wasn’t that bad.” But God sees these sins. He exposes them for what they are, and that reality deals a massive blow to our pride. “For their wickedness blinded them, and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hoped for the wages of holiness.” Like those who had Jesus tortured and killed, we are blinded by our sin, by our pride. They thought themselves masters of the Law and the supreme exemplars of righteousness. They had no interest in true holiness, for their blindness led them to think they already had it. It is the same with us. We whitewash our sin, we blow it off like it’s no big deal. Worse, we make a habit out of doing this. It becomes easier every time, and once you have become habituated into doing this you become blind to the reality of your sin. Now your conscience is malformed, and you no longer even recognize that what you are doing is wrong. So when someone comes along (e.g., Jesus) and tells you that you are sinning, you become defensive. How dare he?! I am not a sinner! Who is he to judge me?! This is why we have practices like penitential seasons. We are very good at whitewashing our sin, and it takes a concerted effort to overcome that. It takes allowing God into your life, so that you can begin to heal. God can heal your blindness, and it is only then that we will be able to see Jesus for who He is: the righteous man, the Son of God who leads us to the Father. His presence is not offensive to those who can see. Rather, it is a blessing. John 5:31-47 (NRSVCE)
Testimony is the central focus of this passage. John testifies that Jesus is the Messiah, the works of Jesus testify on behalf of the Father that Jesus is the Messiah. The Father directly testifies that Jesus is the Son of God, when he says “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17) Scripture testifies to Jesus. Even Moses testified to Jesus. “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.” Yet despite all of this testimony, Jesus is still rejected. And why? Because man seeks glory in himself, not in God. Jesus says that the reason he is rejected is because “the Jews” do not have the love of God in them (scare quotes because John’s Gospel has a very particular emphasis on “the Jews” and their opposition to Jesus). They have never heard Him, never seen Him, and they do not have His word abiding in them. They love man above all, which is why they accept a man who comes in his own name, but not a man who comes in the name of God. They seek glory from each other, and for themselves, rather than turning to God.
The contrast here is Jesus. “I do not accept glory from human beings.” Jesus seeks glory only from God—that is, it is only God’s approval that matters, not the approval of men. Is this our attitude? Are we really concerned with pleasing God, or are we more concerned with the approval of men? By the way, don’t forget to Like, Share, Subscribe, and Retweet this post! That’s the attitude we have now, and Jesus shows us that it’s an attitude which has always been with man, even from the very beginning! Think of the first sin, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden. They did that because they wanted to be the masters of knowledge, they wanted to be like God. They sought glory for themselves, they sought approval only from each other, and in so doing they rejected God. And now here we are, many thousands of years later, showing the same defiance to the will of God. This defiance testifies to the state of our condition—it testifies to our need for healing, for repentance, and for a savior. That is what Jesus has come to do. He comes in the name of the Father to expose sin for what it is, to bring us to repentance, to heal us, and to ultimately save us from eternal death. He comes to give life, but that life comes with a condition. We must love God above all, with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind. For if we love the Father, we will love the Son whom He sent, and no longer will we seek glory from each other. We will look to God as the source of all glory, and in so doing we will be saved. John 5:17-30 (NRSVCE)
Jesus calls God “Father,” which outrages the Jews as they see Jesus making himself equal to God. Why does it seem that way to them? Is a son always equal to his father? Fathers are the head of the household, right? So that should make the son less than the father, at least in some respect. Lucky for us, C.S. Lewis devotes an entire chapter of Mere Christianity to this topic.
The distinction Lewis uses is between “making” and “begetting.” We say all the time that Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God, and there’s a reason we use that particular phrase. When you make something, you are making something other than yourself. You are making a chair, or a car, or a hotdish (or a casserole, but that’s a distinction for another time). God made everything that is, and nothing that He made is God. It is all “other.” But when you beget something, you beget something of the very same nature as yourself. A tiger begets a tiger cub, not a lion cub. A chicken begets and egg. Or perhaps an egg begets a chicken. I’m still not really sure on that one. A human begets a human. It is impossible for something to beget something of a different nature. A human cannot beget a tiger, or a Porsche, or a Vulcan. You can only beget children. That is the fundamental relationship between father and son, and why the Jews were so upset at what Jesus said. If God is the Father of Jesus, it means Jesus is of the very same nature as the Father. It means Jesus is God. But the relationship between Father and Son is also much more intimate than that between a human father and his human son. They are utterly united in all things, even their very wills are united. “I can do nothing on my own.” There are plenty of things my father does which I don’t do, and many things I do which he would never even want to do. My father wills to eat Dots candy, while I will to throw Dots in the trash where they belong. I will to spend my time in front of a computer screen, while he wills to work with his hands. We are still united in that filial bond, and a bond of friendship, but we are not so united that we will the same things all the time. The Son is totally united to the Father’s will. It’s even more than this, however. Even since the Church Fathers in the first few centuries after the Resurrection, Christians have talked about the Persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, being united not only in nature, not only in relationship, not only in will, but in action as well! If you look at any divine action in Scripture or throughout history, you can see all three Persons at work. They are all present in every divine action. A technical term for this unity of the Persons would be perichoresis, or circumincession if you’re more Latin-inclined. The idea here being that each Person surrounds (peri, circum) and contains (chorein, incedere) the others—a mutual indwelling. Though this is starting to get much more technical than I had intended. The point being here that though we use the terms Father and Son to describe this relationship, at the end of the day this is an analogy. The unity of Father and Son is far deeper than any human relationship. It is one of those mysteries which Christians have been contemplating throughout the ages, and one which we will contemplate forever. Ezekiel 47:1-9, 12 (NRSVCE)
There’s a lot of imagery going on here in Ezekiel’s vision, and it’s hard to even know where to begin. The easiest place to start is probably the flowing water. Ezekiel is led by the angel to this small stream which was flowing out of the temple. Ezekiel wades in it easily, as it’s only ankle deep. He took him a bit further, and Ezekiel is now in it up to his knees. A bit further, and now it’s up to his waist. A bit further, and now Ezekiel needs to swim, as his feed no longer touch the bottom. The stream has become a mighty river. That’s when Ezekiel sees that this river is feeding all kinds of life on its shores and in its waters. This isn’t just some sewage runoff, this is a source of abundance.
The immediately striking thing is the steady growth of the running waters. This can be taken to be symbolism for many things. It could be taken to mean grace, as God’s graces are superabundant, and as we grow in our faith our capacity to love God grows ever more, and God keeps our cup overflowing all long the way. It is God’s grace which perfects us, and this process of sanctification is a gradual welling up in our souls, as we see the waters begin as a small stream but eventually blossom into a mighty river full of life. On the other hand, it could be symbolic of knowledge—that is, knowledge of God and of God’s ways. God doesn’t reveal Himself all at once to man, He does it gradually. He comes to Abraham and promises a great family, and shows He is not like the gods of other nations when He stops Abraham from sacrificing Isaac. He shows great wonders to Moses and the Israelites, through the Exodus and bringing them to the Promised Land. He even gives them the Law, so that they might know how they are to please Him. This progressive revelation of God builds and builds throughout Scripture, finally culminating in the Gospels—in Jesus Christ, God among us. In Christ we see the Law fulfilled, we see the plan of salvation, we see more than we ever had before how much God loves us. And in Christ we find life. Or perhaps we ought to turn our attention to evangelization, to preaching the Gospel. Jesus set His followers to the task of preaching the good news, which like this stream began at the site of the Temple, in Jerusalem. At first, Christ’s Church was a small band of believers reaching out from Jerusalem. But as they pressed on in doing God’s work, they grew. And perhaps a river is even the most fitting of the images here, as the Church grew how? By converting more believers and baptizing them into the one Church. As the apostles and their followers continued to flow out from Jerusalem, they continued to grow. And Christ’s Church brings life to the world, through the preaching of the Gospel, through spreading the good news and leading people to Christ. Like in Ezekiel’s vision, there is a stagnant sea. But the Gospel is like the fresh waters of the river, bringing abundance and life to the world. There are many other ways to see the imagery at work here in this passage (and indeed in all of Ezekiel). I would be curious to hear any of your thoughts on it, as I find myself overwhelmed by the beauty and depth of it. Isaiah 65:17-21 (NRSVCE) For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. What a wonderful image of the New Heaven and the New Earth! No weeping, no suffering, and cause for nothing but rejoicing! But one immediate concern comes to my mind.
No weeping? But not everyone will experience the joys of the New Heaven and the New Earth. What about those who go to Hell? More specifically, what if someone I love goes to Hell? Surely I will know this, both by the grace of the beatific vision or even simply by looking around and not seeing them there with me. How could there be no weeping in that knowledge, no suffering? I can’t imagine not weeping in that situation. How joyous could heaven really be if I know there are people I love who are not there? This is not an easy question, and one I think we often avoid, not only in our conversations but also in our own thoughts. I won’t pretend like I can give a sufficient answer. In fact I’m not even sure if I have an answer. But there are some things which are worth considering, and in considering them maybe we can approach an answer. Firstly, what is it that we are called to do? Obey God’s commandments, right? And Jesus tells us that the greatest of commandments is to love God with all our heart, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. (Matthew 22:38-40) Love is something you must do. You must choose to love someone, even God. God did not create automatons. We have the power of choice, and we are called to choose to love God. To make that choice, to remain faithful in love to God, is to obey His commandments. It is those who love God who will be saved, who will rejoice together in the New Heaven and the New Earth. The flipside of this coin is those who did not love God, nor their neighbor. These instead love only themselves. We speak of God’s love, and indeed love in general, as a gift of self. You give yourself to one another. God gives of himself to us. Those who have not love give nothing. They selfishly cling to what they have, to what they are. Instead of giving out of love, they grasp tighter and scream “Mine!” This is who populates Hell. Those who were unwilling to love anyone, including God. These are the selfish people, the people utterly turned in on themselves, to the point that when God reached out to them and said “Come,” they turned defiantly and walked the other way. This doesn’t satisfy the question, but I think it certainly merits a spot at the table in considering it. Another thing to think about is with regard to both knowledge and God’s perfect justice. St. Paul says “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12) He is not saying we will be omniscient, mind you. Only God is omniscient. But we will know “fully,” that is, the capacity we have to know will be fully satisfied. Though even that can be misleading, as we speak of beatitude as a continual process in which we move further and further into God, always understanding Him more and loving Him more, but never exhausting what He is. That’s quite a big tangent, however. The point I want to make is that we currently operate with such a miniscule understanding. It sounds incredibly banal to say “we will understand later,” but it is true, and very important to keep it in mind. Though we see in a mirror, dimly, now, we will know to the point that we will be fully satisfied. We will see God’s justice, and mercy, and love, at work in a much grander and more comprehensive way than we can see now. We will not see all (only God sees all), but we will see all that we are capable of seeing, or perhaps more accurately, all that we are made capable of seeing. We will see God’s justice for what it is, and we will see those in Hell for who they are. This hardly exhausts the question, or even satisfies it. There’s much more that I want to say on this topic, and hopefully I will have time to do it soon. For now I will leave this in the realm of “I don’t know, but I look forward to when God makes me capable of knowing.” |
ArchivesCategories
All
|