Fear Not

There’s a moment of high drama played out at the end of every criminal trial in America. After all the evidence has been presented and all the arguing has been done, the jury presents their findings to the court. The defendant stands to hear the verdict read. The courtroom is silent. And the verdict is pronounced. Will it be guilty or not guilty? How many of our favorite books and movies have hinged on that breathless moment of judgement? From Perry Mason to Atticus Finch to the real-life drama of the O.J. Simpson trial, those dramatic revelations are part of our cultural experience. Of course, if you happen to be the defendant on trial, all this high drama wouldn’t be nearly so entertaining. Imagine being in a situation where your life is on the line for something you’re accused of doing. Where you’ll spend the rest of your days depends on the verdict that’s about to be read. And there’s nothing you can do to change it. It’s out of your hands.  

I wonder if many people envision a similar scene when God judges us. A celestial courtroom with God as THE JUDGE. He looks at us and we can’t return His gaze. All the sins of our lives are the evidence against us. We tremble and quake. Despite our faith, we stand in fear of His righteous judgement. We know that God’s love for us sent Jesus to live as one of us and to die on the Cross to save us from our sins. We know that we are His prodigal children, loved and forgiven. And yet, we sometimes are afraid to approach Him for the mercy and love that He longs to give us. We imagine a courtroom scene even though we’ve been shown the embrace of our merciful Savior on the Cross.  

When we sin, we can fall into a few misunderstandings about God’s mercy. We can believe, falsely, that God isn’t offended by our sin and so we don’t need the Sacrament of Confession. Or we can believe, also falsely, that our sin is so dark and horrible that God would never forgive us, so why go to Confession at all? In the first case, we’re rejecting what Christ teaches us about Confession. (John 20: 21-23; James 5: 14-17; Matthew 16:19). And when we believe our sins to be greater than God’s mercy, we put ourselves above Him, judging Him instead to be less than all-merciful. He reminds us often in Scripture that His love and mercy will always be available to us (Isaiah 43:25; Psalm 103:2-3; I John 1:9; Acts 3:19). When we recognize our sin (which is a grace given by God) and we repent and go to Confession, His mercy is abundant, every single time.

Jesus created Confession because He knew that we need to speak our sins aloud to another human being It’s part of the healing aspect of the Sacrament. And yet, it is Christ Himself Whom we meet in the confessional and it is His Mercy which forgives our sins. Unlike in a human “courtroom,” the confessional is never a place of condemnation or shame. It is the fount of life itself. We are always found “forgiven” and, through God’s grace, our sins are forgotten. Many may believe that Confession isn’t necessary if we ask God’s forgiveness “in our hearts.” But this isn’t what the Bible teaches us about forgiveness. As a former Baptist, I can assure you that Confession is a treasure of God’s grace. If you’ve been away from Confession, this season of Lent is a wonderful time to come back. Pray that God will make you aware of your sins and then go to Confession. The priest won’t judge you, nor will he be shocked by any of your sins—he’s heard everything. You’ll experience God’s love and forgiveness in his words of absolution. I can tell you that Confession is one of the greatest gifts of Christ to His Church—don’t go another day without it.  

“Forgiveness is not something we can give ourselves. One asks forgiveness, one asks it of another person, and in Confession, we ask forgiveness from Jesus.”

———Pope Francis

His Voice

“There are days when you just don’t think you can go on. You’re exhausted but there’s no end to what you have to do. Each day is like a treadmill that’s running on high speed and it’s all you can do to keep up. If you could only have some time to rest, to recover, and to catch your breath. You don’t think you can make it anymore.” This is what the world says to you. But don’t listen to the world.

“You feel so bad that it had happened–that you had done it. What had you been thinking? It makes you feel so guilty and you hate remembering it. Who could ever love you if they knew about it? You hate yourself for it. There’s nothing you could do to make things right again. It’s like a terrible weight that you’re forced to carry all by yourself.” This is what the world says to you. But don’t listen to the world.  

“She’s one of your closest friends, so you have to help her out with this. She needs your support. She says it would wreck her career right now. After all, it won’t be her first one. The whole thing will be over in just a few hours. You can drive her to her appointment and be home in time for dinner. It’s her body. And, after all, everyone says it’s just a clump of cells.” This is what the world says to you. But don’t listen to the world.

“You just can’t stand to listen to him anymore. He stands for everything you can’t and won’t tolerate. He believes his opinions are the only correct ones. This past election season was horrible because he disagreed with everything you said to him. How can anybody be that stupid? This friendship just isn’t worth it anymore.” This is what the world says to you. But don’t listen to the world.

“What a sexist pig! He must think that the only reason women exist in the world is for his pleasure. He could never view a woman as his intellectual equal. He won’t even have dinner alone with a woman, except for his wife. What a disrespectful attitude to women!” This is what the world says to you. But don’t listen to the world.

“She’s there every day on the sidewalk outside. Filthy, dirty, and smelling so bad it’s almost unbearable. There are shelters for people like her, so why won’t she go to one? You never put any money in her old coffee can. She’d probably just use it to buy a cheap bottle of wine. You wish she’d move to a different spot so you wouldn’t have to see her every day. What a waste!” This is what the world says to you. But don’t listen to the world.  

How often do we listen to the voice of the world rather than to the words of our loving Savior? Perhaps because we allow the world to drone in through television and social media. We run from the silence in which we need to dwell in order to hear the whisper of God. But the Lord is always near us, longing to be heard and to listen; longing to reassure us of His love and forgiveness. There’s nothing we can do to make Him love us less; nothing we need fear from going to Him in repentance. He invites us to forgive others, to see and to support the poor among us, to stand up for life and for marriage. Only God can give us the peace and the rest that we’re looking for. Easter is the promise of His love fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The sound of the stone rolling away from the tomb can silence the clamor and noise of the world, if we allow it. Listen for the His voice especially during these days of Lent ahead of us. He is peace. He is love.  

“…in the world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have conquered the world.”

          —John 16:33

The Question

There’s a story in the Gospel that I seem to always come back to in my readings and study.  I wouldn’t exactly call it a favorite of mine because, in a way, it makes me a bit uncomfortable.  But over the years I’ve found that if something in Sacred Scripture makes you uncomfortable, you need to pay attention.  Sometimes those passages that trouble or confound us are exactly the ones that God most wants us to hear and understand.  In my case, one of these troublesome passages is the story of Bartimaeus which St. Mark describes in the tenth chapter of his Gospel.  We see Jesus and the Apostles on the journey to Jerusalem, with a large crowd following them.  Christ makes it clear that He is going there to be jailed and killed and that He will rise again on the third day.  James and John are intrigued and they ask Jesus to let them sit beside Him in heaven.  He explains to them that His will for them all is that they serve one another, rather than seek personal authority or power.  As they are leaving the city of Jericho, they pass by Bartimaeus, a blind beggar sitting at the side of the road.  When Bartimaeus hears that Jesus is nearby, he cries out to Him: “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me” (Mark 10:42).  Many in the crowd rebuke him, telling him to be quiet, but he keeps calling to Jesus.  Christ tells the crowd to let Bartimaeus come to Him, which he does.  When he gets to Jesus, the Lord asks him: “What do you want Me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51).

And that’s the question from my Savior that never fails to astound me.  Because I know Jesus is asking me the same question.  “Judy, what do you want me to do for you?” The Creator of the universe is stopping by to see me, in the midst of all my sin to ask me if He can be my servant.  He wants to stop everything and listen to my pleading voice.  And what do I say to Him?  What do I want from Jesus? This is one of the most radical and countercultural truths of our Christian faith:  God wants us to tell Him what we want from Him.  On the way to His Passion, He wants us to ask even more of Him.  Within sight of His death on a Cross, for our sins, He stops to ask, “What do you want Me to do for you?” What love!  What absolute Love He has for us!  To be loved by Love Himself.  God comes to us to ask to be our servant and to offer Himself for our needs.  His love is all-consuming and is most ultimately consumated on His Holy Cross, where He gives everything for you and for me.

How do we answer Christ’s heart-stopping question?  For we know that in our answer we’ll reveal the truth of our relationship with Him.  Like John and James, do we desire honor and glory?  Do we want a bigger house, a better job, more influence, more recognition?  Do we desire forgiveness?  Like Bartimaeus, do we seek to be set free from darkness?  Or do we fear God so much that we can’t imagine asking Him for anything?  Will our answer to His question be to ask something for someone else?  Will we reveal love in our hearts in our unselfish plea?  What is our deepest desire, our most heartfelt yearning:?  A cure?  A vision?  A favor?

We can find an answer in Bartimaeus himself.  He casts himself on Christ’s great mercy and cries out, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me.”  He asks to be set free, “I want to see.”  Christ assures him that his faith has saved him.  And then we read, “Immediately he received his sight and followed Him on the way”(Mark 10:52).  Isn’t this what happens when we approach the mercy of God in the Sacrament of Confession?  We cast ourselves on Jesus’ mercy and ask Him to set us free from our sins, from our blindness.  And God never fails.  Our faith saves us, we get up, and we follow Him.  Like Bartimaeus, we’ve been set free by our Servant Savior.  Never doubt God’s great love for you and His desire to set you free from your sin, whatever it might be.  Get up and follow Him.

Confession heals, confession justifies, confession grants pardon of sin, all hope consists in confession; in confession there is a chance for mercy.

                           St. Isidore of Seville

At The Well

It’s the longest dialogue Jesus has with anyone in any of the Gospels.  We’ve all heard the story many times, and for good reason—this lovely encounter between Christ and a sinner cuts to the very heart of what it means to be a Christian.  In the fourth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, Jesus comes to a well at noontime and there he meets a Samaritan woman who is about to fill her water jar.  The conversation they share at the well reveals how mercy and sin meet in the heart of the woman.  She is an outcast, a Samaritan, with whom no “respectable” Jewish man would speak.  Yet she and Jesus speak deeply together about social protocol, religious history, Jewish prophecy and, in a real stunner for the woman, her own broken marriages and sin.  She is transformed by her conversation with Jesus.  In the middle of this ordinary day, her life was totally changed.  She has met the Messiah at the well.  Since we know her shame and her sins, we know that her noonday trip to the well was something she’d planned.  It was no accident for her to be there when she was.  The other women of the town would have visited the well early in the morning.  So she’d avoided the stares and comments of these “respectable” women by timing her trip for the hottest time of the day, when no one else would be there.  Or so she thought.

But God had other plans for her life.  In the middle of an ordinary day, in the middle of her sinful life, the Creator of the universe asked her for a drink of water.  As they spoke together, Jesus revealed Who He was and gave her the promise of eternal life.  She was drawn to Him.  Jesus didn’t condemn her, which she was probably expecting.  Neither did He minimize her situation:  “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband (John 4:17-18).”  Jesus named her sin there in the light of the noonday sun.  And her eyes and heart were opened to see Him and hear Him.  He accepted her in her sin without condemnation or judgment.  His truthful words allowed her to imagine a new beginning.  His mercy was a healing balm for her broken and abused heart.  As she felt the impact of His acceptance and love grow within her, she did something remarkable—“…she left her water jar…”(John 4:28).  The very thing that was the reason she’d come to the well in the first place was now unimportant to her.  She left the jar to tell the people of the town about Jesus.  “Come and see a man who told me everything I have done”(Johne 4:29).  Perhaps the burden of that heavy clay water jar was like the other burdens she’d left at the well.  Her sinfulness, her emptiness, her shame and her guilt, these were gone, too.  She’d visited the well for ordinary water and found living water instead.  All her burdens were now laid at the feet of the Lord.

As the season of Lent begins, we can see ourselves in her unfolding story.  What burdens, what sins, what shame are each of us being called to lay at Jesus’ feet?  What is it in my life that I keep in my own water jar?  And if we don’t give our sinfulness over to Him, how can we hope to be a witness to others of His life-giving water?  What am I carrying around that gets in the way of my sharing the good news of God’s mercy and love?

“…whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst…”(John 4:14)