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Alone Together with The Eternal Sunrise | The Monday After
00:21:02
To be Christian is to be alone, but to be alone together with Christ and with one another in the Church. We are those blessed few who have been sought and found by Christ, the Eternal Sunrise, Who shines us who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and Who guides our feet into the way of peace.
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So here we are together, you and me, as you listen to this podcast. We are together, alone. And this is the life of the Christian, right? We are alone in this world, but together. You can see when people meet Jesus in the gospel, that this same thing happens to them. They find themselves alone together with Jesus, alone in the world, together with. With the church. Now, I say it that way because I'm thinking about last week's gospel passage, the woman of Samaria that Jesus meets at the well, and then this week's gospel passage, the man born blind outside of the temple area, that Jesus not just heals, but in whom he creates vision, that God creates sight in this man who was born blind. But the point is that both she, the woman, and this man, after these encounters with Christ, find themselves alone together with him. They are now living differently than people in and of the world because they see things differently and think differently. He creates in their mind a new heavens, and then their life becomes a new earth, Meaning they think differently and see differently, and then they begin to live differently. And this is what happens to us. Now, look at the symbolism in this story of how Christ heals the man born blind. How does he do it? Let's just first mention and remember that the man had no sight in the first place. And when we ask about that, the disciples are like, what happened to this guy? Is he blind because he sinned or is he blind because his parents sinned? Jesus replies, it's not that this man sinned or that his parents sinned, but that the works of God might be made visible through him. So, okay, the Father allowed this man to be born blind, knowing that this day his Son would find him and that the Father would create sight in him through the Son for all of us to see, meaning for all of us to see that miracle and then to hear about it and talk about it now, 2,000 years later, but that we too might be given new sight. You know, and how. Well, again, look at the way Jesus does this. He takes some clay and uses some saliva from his own mouth. The word of God coming from the mouth of God, the very spirit of God, the living waters that he spoke about last week to the woman at the well. Now he mixes it together with the clay, makes mud, and places it on the man's eyes. He tells him to go wash in the waters of the pool called siloam, which means sent, because Jesus is the one who was sent from the Father. And the man can see. Now, that is awesome in and of itself, but it also speaks to How God created us in the first place, how he creates man and each one of us. He creates us by breathing his life into the very clay of the earth, the very living spirit of God breathed into us to make us made in his image and likeness. That's how he created us in the first place. And then think about the sacraments which God sends into the world to redeem the world now to give us sight again. We who were once able to see are now blind because of being born into original sin. But he sends the sacraments to us. And what are sacraments? Well, we say that they are matter and form, like they are some sort of natural created good, like water or oil or bread or wine. And then Christ, through the instrument of his priest, breathes the Spirit into them. And Jesus is giving us that same ability to see the truth of things, the truth of our life, our purpose, our meaning, our destiny, the dignity of the human person. So there's so much going on here, but this Gospel passage is really about the way the Pharisees in particular, but also even his own family and the community, they all had a hard time accepting this and permitting this. Obviously, the Pharisees were upset that it happened on a Sabbath. They're always angry at Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. Remember, on the Sabbath, you're not supposed to do any work at all. Apparently not even healing. But that's where they're really legalistic and unfortunately separated from the very Spirit of God or the Spirit of the law, which is mercy. And they just get so attached to the letter of the law. But there's also the fact that his own parents, this man born blind, when they get approached, like, yes, this is our Son, and yes, he was born blind. But as for how this happened and who the man is who did this, they're like, ask our son, he's of age. Ask him. He's a big boy. He could talk for himself. I mean, that kind of fear around all of this is very real. And that's going on in our lives today, too. I mean, someone in the family is experiencing a kind of conversion, and then everyone gets all afraid of it. We have so many friends who have left us, in a sense, because they no longer want to walk with someone who claims to be seeing differently or thinking differently. You know, just today, this Monday, we heard in the first reading that Isaiah says that God wants to create a new heavens and a new earth. And of course, that's present to us in Christ. But how should we picture this new heavens and a new earth? Well, Maybe with the fathers of the Church, we can say, look at the man who undergoes a conversion. He thinks differently. Now his mind is like a new heavens, and he acts differently. And so his life is like a new earth. You know, see the relationship between the heavens and the earth and also between a man's spiritual life, his mind, and his actions, his life. Again, it's like the sacrament, which is matter and form, earth and heaven, you know? And so when Christ comes to us, he brings the new heavens and the new earth, because he is living by the very spirit of God, thinking with the very mind of God and acting, doing things by the very hand of God and with the power of God. And when this life touches us, we are taken up into it and become like it. And then we experience what this man also experienced, the man born blind. What happened to him? Remember what happened to him? They kicked him out of the temple area. He gets rejected. That's what happens to Christ. He's ultimately crucified. This is what happens to anybody who dares to say, I'm sorry, but I look at things differently than you. I think differently about that than you do. I mean, how many friends of ours show us things on the phone or invite us to do things on the weekend that make us feel uncomfortable because we don't think the same way, we don't look at things the same way. Somebody's changing our vision. Someone is changing the way that we think. This is how Jesus works. This is what's happening. This is what it means to be a Christian and how we can feel sometimes all alone. But together we'll be alone, Right? So we are alone together. As we said this weekend, think about the early church. How did the early church witness to Christ, meaning like the church as it grew up in the Roman Empire? Well, they were evangelizing. And really, how did they witness? How did they evangelize? By their being rejected by the world together. Right. It's the age of great expansion and growth, but also the age of martyrdom. I mean, so often, even beyond mere exclusion from a community, they were put to death, but that's how they were witnessing. They were alone together. And it was attractive to people because it looked bold and different. It seemed mysteriously free and fearless. It was almost as if these Christians knew something that we did not. Right? That's what it was like. And what they knew was that Christ has conquered death, that he has overcome what had otherwise been an eternal sunset experience. He brought in a sunrise into humanity. A new sunrise into Christ is called the. The day Spring from on high. There's a line in the scriptures. The dawn from on high shall break upon us to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. The dawn from on high shall shine upon us, shall break in like a new sunrise. I'm going to read to you what I mentioned in the homily. This is a story told about Benjamin Franklin just after he expressed his own approval of the Constitution. We're told that after he did, he gave a great speech. Madison noted that Dr. Franklin, looking toward the president's chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. Is that interesting? It's true. It's like. Is that a painting of a rising sun or a setting sun? Hard to tell. Maybe it depends on how you look at the world. Right? But we're told that Benjamin Franklin said, I have often in the course of this session, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was a rising or a setting sun. But now, at length, I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun. Hmm. It's a beautifully poetic way to say the founders of this country knew that this Constitution was like a rising sun, a new dawning of a new day for what could be a new way of living together as a United States. And I love that vision of our founders so full of hope. And I love the way of imagining it or picturing it as a sunrise where it might have otherwise been a mere sunset. Now, in this life, there will always be sunsets. You have to put to death the monarchy. It's time for. For the sun to set on the divine right of kings, or it's time for the sun to set on dictatorships. It's time for the sun to set on communism. But the dawn from on high can always break upon us if we open our heart to what Christ can do in our life now. And he is always here with us to do wonderful things, whether it be piercing our heart by convicting us of sin as he does to the woman at the well. Not to condemn us, but to break into our hearts, to get us to acknowledge the truth of our need for grace and salvation and to ask the questions of why we choose to do what we do when we make decisions from the darkness in our hearts. Why are we doing that? But he also comes to the man born blind through a Surprising circumstance, something happens to this guy. He's just sitting there begging, and then all of a sudden, this man comes and puts mud in his face. But this happens to us in life, too. Like I mentioned last week, going to the store, trying to be alone, but there's this woman there who is like mud in my face just talking to me. I'm like, I don't want this right now. What are you doing? But then it led to this new sunrise that broke into that day that felt like it was going to be all sunset. So Christ is like this. Sometimes somebody might call us out, like, on our sins, and it's not pleasant. We're not supposed to like it. Sin's an unpleasant thing. But what if it's Christ who, although he's speaking a tough word to us, only intends for us to open our hearts to the possibility of a sunrise and come out of the dark, to live in the light? That's what I think the woman at the well came to understand. Like, my goodness, she said, I've been going after chasing after so many things, when really I'm just looking for God and a life with him and the man born blonde. Even though I have to get a job now, I won't be able to beg now. And even though I'm experiencing rejection and suspicion and even from my own family, I'd rather live in the truth. You know, I mentioned to you this weekend, too, I love the way at the end of the Titanic, the movie with, you know, about really Jack and Rose. I love the way that Jack says to Rose while he is freezing to death in the water, after the ship has gone down and they're awaiting the lifeboats, he says to Rose, winning that ticket was the best thing that ever happened to me because it brought me to you, Rose. You know, he was saying, like, I'm happy to have met you. Even though here we are alone. We are alone together. The point is to say, even though we will die, Rose, I know that death does not have the last word. That's what love can accomplish, and not merely human affection. I mean, I know that it's a Hollywood film portraying a story, but at the same time, it touches on what can happen in the heart of a Christian. To be able to say to death, to look at death in the face and say, I'm not afraid of you. I've mentioned this to some of you. That story about Possim Boots, that last movie of his, which was shown to us on a priest retreat last year, we were watching it, like, what are we watching this for. And at the end of it, we saw. It's like, this is terrific. On the way to try to find some sort of magic thing or whatever treasure that would give him nine more lives. He's on his last life, his ninth life. You see all the ways that he died before. And it's whenever he's so confident and even to be proud that he is careless and he dies. So I put some boots, I take care of everything. He sees this beautiful woman as he's running with the bulls, and he goes, hello. And as soon as he stops, he gets hit by the bulls and he dies. And his ninth life, he's making his way to, I think a treasure or something to try to find nine more lives. And he makes the most unlikely companions along the way. And they are alone, but together. And as he gets before the wolf that is guarding the treasure at the end, he says something like, you know, I know I cannot beat you, you know, but I am not afraid of you See, the companions he made along the way gave him the courage to just accept the one last life he had, the one life he had to live. He was almost like, I don't need nine more lives. I found such a friendship that I am happy to have this one life, even though I know that I will die. That's what Christ offers us. This to me, is like the promise of the resurrection which breaks into our lives in this world, which are full of the acknowledgment and the awareness of an unavoidable sunset that awaits us all, the experience of death. You see, Christ came into this life not just to do away with death, but to conquer it, overcome it. Obviously, we say piously, he breaks through it, you know, to make a way through death into eternal life for us. But think about the people that he raised from the dead in this world. You know, Jairus daughter, obviously, like Lazarus. We're going to hear the raising of Lazarus next week. But they died again, right? So why would he raise them from the dead? Well, they're really resuscitations. Why would he breathe life back into them in this life only to have them die again? Well, to show us that when he says that I will raise you up after death, that we can trust his word and we can believe him because, well, he did bring these people back from the dead. So even they, though being allowed to die again in order to make their way to the Father's house shows us that Christ did not come just to make it so that we would not die, but that death would not have the last word and that we will be free from the fear of death. That's what he wants for us, right? Even Christ's own resurrection is a testimony to this. It's the first question his disciples, I'm sure, would have asked him when they saw him. And they caught their breath once they realized and got over the shock of the fact that he was raised from the dead. You can imagine them asking like, lord, does this mean that we will not have to die now? And then you can imagine Jesus saying to them, well, no, you still will die. But you will see that it is an altogether different experience for you now than it would have been. See, Christ has changed death forever and in that sense, conquered it. But it still awaits us as a final sunset in this fallen world. So we had fun this weekend looking at the similarities between the story of the man born blind who was given sight and then the woman at the well. Jesus was seeking them both out. As we remember that God is looking for us, they both go through this kind of progression of faith. They call him a man and then a prophet, and then they come to know him as Lord. So we want to also think about Jesus not only as a man and not only merely as a prophet, but as the Son of God himself, the only begotten son of God, the one conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. It's a big difference. But then also the woman of the well is sent back into the world to evangelize. And then the man born blind is actually now rejected from the community and goes into the world as one who is rejected. And we can see how both are happening in our lives all the time. This is what it's like to be a Catholic Christian in this world. We. We evangelize, but we really evangelize by how we live with hope and joy even as we experience rejection from the world. We are alone in this world, but we are alone together. Like the early church in Rome in particular, it was evangelizing and witnessing and growing, but it was also being rejected and even sometimes martyred, put to death, not just excluded from the community. And how is it that both could be happening at the same time? Well, this is what is attractive and interesting. It's like this person seems to know something that I don't know. How is it that they face death the way that they do? How is it that they love one another even under persecution? How is it that they have such hope? What do they know? What do they see that I Can't see. This is the new heavens and the new earth that Isaiah was speaking about even just today at mass. The new way of seeing the new heavens and then the new earth, meaning the new way of living, the new way of acting, approaching people that we might have been afraid of before or felt we could not approach before. Now, talking boldly to anyone, but also, and most importantly, approaching death differently and looking at death differently. Like Puss in Boots, when he looks at the wolf, representative of death, when he looks at him and says, I know I cannot beat you, but I am not afraid of you. You know, it's like, what are you saying? How could you not be? He's terrifying. Oh, no, I know he does not have the last word. That kind of boldness before death, you know, that is so interesting, because that does look to this world as something new, something different. Breaking into this world. It looks like the dawn of an altogether new sunrise. Something supernatural compared to the natural sunrises. You know, something like a grace breaking into this world, which is not of this world, but greater than this world. You know, the children we baptized yesterday, Grace and Lucy. How perfectly fitting. By God's grace, we come to see Lucy, Lucia, Luz, meaning light. It was so special. And they were at the same mass. It was really adorable. And the parents afterwards said hello to each other so nicely. They looked at each other, two mothers holding the babies and looked at each other, said, congratulations. But we're really saying, isn't this amazing what's happening here? The God who gave these children to us in this world is promising us that he can give them life in the world to come where their sun will never set, that they might come to know an eternal sunrise one day. And to think that we might be able to share that with them. This is what Jesus brings to us, right? Christ is the compassion of God toward both the being born into this world fallen as he's compassionate toward the man born blind, and also toward the woman at the well in us, which actually chooses sometimes, even though we should know better, chooses sometimes to make decisions that are offensive to God and to our own humanity. It's all to accomplish what we're going to hear about next week when he calls Lazarus forth from the tomb, all to say to us, you who were once in darkness, come out into the light.