John 8:51-59
In the spirit of this penitential season of Lent, I must confess that I suffer from the Capital Sin of anger. It is true that many bad things have happened to me, and it is true that many good things have happened to me. It is also true that probably only 5-10 percent of my anger is warranted; the rest is sin. Anger is an emotion which is not in itself wrong, but which, when it is not controlled by reason, hardens into resentment and hate, and becomes one of the seven capital sins. Uncontrolled anger blinds those who suffer from it. It is this spiritual blindness that keeps us from seeing our Lord. In the passage that we are considering today, our Lord was having a final encounter with “the Jews.” “The Jews” are in quotes because St. John the Evangelist used this phrase, not to refer to all Jews, but simply those people who were diametrically opposed to our Lord. Our Lord said simply that the person who keeps his commandments will never see death. Then we see the blindness that comes with anger. “The Jews” were so blinded by their anger that when they looked upon the Second Person of the Triune God, they saw a demon. When asked if our Lord was greater than Abraham, our Lord explained that Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Christ’s glory. There is an early Jewish tradition that taught that God showed Abraham a future vision of the great Messiah and our Lord relayed this tradition and commented that our Lord existed even before Abraham. Of course, if our Lord was not God, this would be blasphemy and “the Jews” went along following the mosaic Law and tried to carry out the appropriate punishment for blasphemy which was death by stoning.
Imagine being one of “the Jews”; spending your childhood learning the Scriptures, practicing your faith, following the Law, following the tradition of the rabbis and the prophets, and one day you get the unthinkable privilege of seeing God’s promised Messiah, but your anger dictates your actions. “Group think” takes over and your hardened heart steers you to commit attempted murder against the Creator of the universe and the Author of our salvation. This is no hypothetical situation; this is how we nail our savior to the cross every time we transgress.
One of the ironies of this passage is that “the Jews” will indeed be responsible for the murder of our Lord as they responded to Pontius Pilate, “His blood be on us and on our children.” But our Lord will die according to the will of the Father: high and lifted up on a cross of glory so that he can take away our sins and give us the freedom to choose the path to eternal life. The path to eternal life starts with repentance. Sometimes my anger keeps me from seeing Jesus. Sometimes I choose every other path but the right one. The beauty of Lent is that we are forced to corporately acknowledge our sins and place them on the altar for God to deal with. When we confess our sins and receive God’s absolution, it is then that we see most clearly. A Saint once said, “I sin as much as the next guy, but God has given me the power to see my sins more clearly and it is most debilitating.”
Most Gracious God, give us an awareness of our sins that we may approach your altar with new and contrite hearts in order to obtain perfect remission and forgiveness. Amen.
Meditation by the Reverend Jesse Lassiter
Rector, St. Uriel’s Episcopal Church, Sea Girt
Diocese of New Jersey