Let's Crucify Our Sins!

Jesus said to the Pharisees:
"I am going away and you will look for me,
but you will die in your sin.
Where I am going you cannot come."
So the Jews said,
"He is not going to kill himself, is he,
because he said, 'Where I am going you cannot come'?"
He said to them, "You belong to what is below,
I belong to what is above.
You belong to this world,
but I do not belong to this world.
That is why I told you that you will die in your sins.
For if you do not believe that I AM,
you will die in your sins."
So they said to him, "Who are you?"
Jesus said to them, "What I told you from the beginning.
I have much to say about you in condemnation.
But the one who sent me is true,
and what I heard from him I tell the world."
They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father.
So Jesus said to them,
"When you lift up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I AM,
and that I do nothing on my own,
but I say only what the Father taught me.
The one who sent me is with me. 
He has not left me alone,
because I always do what is pleasing to him."
Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.

There are two key sets of words in today’s gospel reading.  They are “I AM” and “lift up.”  Let’s take a look at both of them.

In the Old Testament, “I AM” refers the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. The term is used in the Gospel of John twenty-four times.  Jesus in effect is telling them exactly who He is, He is Yahweh, the God of their fathers.  In this instance, the crowd does not react to the saying perhaps because Jesus seemingly tempers it with the next concept of Him not doing anything on His own but only what the Father taught Him. He uses a rather strange term here when he says that He will be “lifted up.”  This was an idiom for the act of crucifixion.  One was lifted up on a cross to be executed in such a shameful manner would hardly be what “I AM” would choose to do, or would He?  St. John is showing the Cross as our redemption, an altar of sacrifice, and the glory of Jesus, the obedient son, sitting forever in glory at the right hand of the Father.  So, the cross is shown as a paradox.  It is both an instrument of death and the throne of glory as it is the symbol of the victory of Jesus against the powers of sin and death.

As we get closer and closer to the Tridium, we should look harder at ourselves and ruthlessly and shamelessly determine where it is we fall short of being the type of person God wants us to be. If you let this whole Lenten season go by and you do not look at yourself honestly and determine where your sins lie then you have wasted forty days and forty nights in the desert and are the most pitiful of fools. What is it you fear about the confessional? Is the priest going to think ill of you when you confess the horrible things that are in your past?  My friend, your priest has heard it all.  There is nothing that you will confess that will shock or surprise him.  Remember where he sits can be likened to the very throne of God because it is to God that you confess and the priest merely acts in persona Christi and through the words of absolution dispenses the mercy of God.

This is a time where mercy is being poured out by our loving Creator.  No sin is too great to obtain His forgiveness for.  But then why can’t I go directly to God to obtain this great forgiveness?  Why does a priest have to get between me and God?  To this, I remind you that when we sin, even the smallest of sins, are offenses against the dignity of God.  Our sins, no matter how private they may be, also affect the entire Church for we make up the Body of Christ. So our sins affect not just the dignity of God but they bruise the relationship we have with one another as well.  The reason we have to go to confession is that Christ wills it so.  He said to the Apostles, “Whose sins you forgive they are forgiven and those that you retain, they are retained.”  The priest who has the authority of the Church to forgive must hear what the sin is and then he must exercise the authority to dispense the forgiveness of God.

This is a time of great mercy and it puts all of us under a great obligation.  We must accept the mercy of God, who willingly is extending it at this time or we commit the only sin that cannot be forgiven and that is the ultimate rejection of God.  Wake up!  God loves you so much that He died for you on the Cross.  Crucify your sinfulness, lift it up and you will be forgiven.  Please don’t let Mercy slip away from you, it is our last chance. 

Pray, Pray, Pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory. They are your relatives and friends that have gone before you.  I would like to think that they went directly to heaven but what if they didn’t?  They need our prayers.  Don’t let your love for them end at the lip of the grave.  Pray for them today.