January
21, 2017
Saturday,
Week Two, Year I
Hebrews 9:2-14; Psalm 47; Mark 3:20-21.
Our History Is Nullified By Mystery
Hebrews tells us we
have more to celebrate at Mass than we might be aware of. The readings often
do!
Most people worry sometimes about their sins.
Some worry a lot. Some Catholics even confess over and over again sins they
have already confessed, even though they were certainly taught that this is not
necessary, not smart, and not in accord with what we believe about the
forgiveness of sins. But they keep feeling guilty, so they keep bringing up the
same things. And even if they don’t confess them again, they still worry about
them.
This is rooted in a misunderstanding both of
Baptism and of the Mass — because it is rooted in a profound misunderstanding
of Christ’s sacrificial death, which gives both Baptism and the Mass their
meaning.
The key text in today’s reading is: “When Christ
came as a high priest of all the blessings which were to come, he entered the
sanctuary once for all, taking with him, not the blood of goats and calves, but
his own blood, and achieved eternal [or ‘definitive’] redemption.”
People who can’t get rid of their guilt feelings
think they have to keep doing something to “make up” or “pay” for their sins.
And of course it is never enough, never “definitive.” So like Lady Macbeth
trying to wash King Duncan’s blood off her hands, they keep repeating, “Out, damned spot!” over and over again without getting
relief. Their motivation is fear, not love. Lady Macbeth’s cry is in the back
of their minds: “Hell is murky!” They don’t understand what Jesus did.
Jesus wasn’t really “paying” for our sins,
because God wasn’t charging anything for them! He did “make a sacrifice of
atonement [English: ‘at-one-ment’] for the sins of the people,” but this was
not a simple “payment.”
The
key word for atonement is the Hebrew kapper....
which means etymologically to cover, to conceal the offending object and so to
remove the obstacle to reconciliation.[1]
Reconciliation — “at-one-ment” — is the goal. A
thread in Protestantism sees Christ’s blood as “covering over” our sins, so
that the sight of them does not offend God. Like “a dunghill covered with snow”
(words attributed falsely to Martin Luther), we are “covered by the Blood.” But
we believe Jesus is the “Lamb of God who takes
away the sins of the world.” That means he removes them, obliterates them.
And this is the significance of Christ’s blood: he died so that we might die in him. Our redemption comes through at-one-ment with Christ in his death, at-one-ment with Christ in his
resurrection, and at-one-ment with
Christ in living the divine life of grace “in him” as members of his risen body
who are a “new creation.”[2]
If sins were just “forgiven,” we might feel we
had to “make up” for them, since forgiveness doesn’t change us. But sins “taken
away” are gone. They no longer exist. To keep “paying” for them is to deny the
power of the blood of Christ shed, not in payment, but in order that the one
who sinned might die and rise “in him” as a “new creation” with no guilt or
history of sin. If we hold on to our history, we nullify the mystery! If we let
it go, “God mounts his throne to shouts
of joy.”
1. Have I let go of all my past sins?
2. Have I given them to Jesus on the cross?
3. Have I left them with him to dispose of and never looked back?
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