20140718 ARE YOU READY TO DIE AND DIE IN PEACE?
Scripture
readings for 18 Jul 2014
Reading 1, Isaiah 38:1-6, 21-22, 7-8
1 About then, Hezekiah fell
ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came and said to him,
'Yahweh says this, "Put your affairs in order, for you are going to die,
you will not
live." '
3 'Ah, Yahweh, remember, I beg you, that I have behaved
faithfully and with sincerity of heart in your presence and done what you
regard as right.' And Hezekiah shed
many tears.
5 'Go and say to Hezekiah, "Yahweh, the God of your
ancestor David, says this: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I shall cure you:
in three days' time you will go up to
the Temple of
Yahweh. I shall add fifteen years to your life.
6 I shall save you and this city from the king of
Assyria's clutches and defend this city for my sake and my servant David's
sake." '
8 Look, I shall make the shadow cast by the declining sun
on the steps -- the steps to Ahaz's roof-room-go back ten steps.' And the sun
went back the ten steps by which it had declined.
Responsorial Psalm, Isaiah 38:10, 11, 12, 16
10 I thought: In the noon of my life I am to depart.
At the gates of Sheol I shall be held for the rest of my days.
11 I thought: I shall never see Yahweh again in
the land of the living, I shall never see again a single one of those who live
on earth.
12 My home has been pulled up, and thrown away like a
shepherd's tent; like a weaver, I have rolled up my life, he has cut me from
the loom. From dawn to dark, you have been making an end of me;
16 The Lord is over
them; they live, and everything in them lives by his spirit. You will cure me.
Restore me to life.
Gospel, Matthew 12:1-8
1 At that time Jesus went through the cornfields one Sabbath day. His
disciples were hungry and began to pick ears of corn and eat them.
2 The Pharisees
noticed it and said to him, 'Look, your disciples are doing something that is
forbidden on the Sabbath.'
3 But he said to them, 'Have you not read what David did
when he and his followers were hungry-
4 how he went into the house of God and they ate
the loaves of the offering although neither he nor his followers were permitted
to eat them, but only the priests?
5 Or again, have you not read in the Law that on the Sabbath day the Temple priests
break the Sabbath without
committing any fault?
6 Now here, I tell you, is something greater than the
Temple.
7 And if you had understood the meaning of the words:
Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the
blameless.
ARE
YOU READY TO DIE AND DIE IN PEACE?
We can imagine how Hezekiah
must have felt when confronted with the prophecy of Isaiah, “Put your
affairs in order, for you are going to die, you will not live.” What
if these words of the Lord were addressed to you? How would you
feel? Would you be shaken and frightened at the prospect of departing
from this world and leaving your loved ones, including your wealth? But
why should be you be anxious and fearful of death?
Perhaps, because you did
not live a good life and your conscience is not clear. As you recollect the history of
your life, you may realize that you have lived a sinful, dishonest, immoral and
irreligious life, doing all the shameful and despicable things one can think
of. Having lived such a selfish and self-centered life, our conscience will
condemn us. Our pride will hold us back from meeting God because of the
shame in us, especially when we confront our true self and motivations so
clearly at death. If not for our pride, we will fear God’s wrath and
punishments for our offences.
But suppose you are a
good and upright person
like Hezekiah, who was truly a good King, why should you be worried
about coming before the Judgment Seat of the Lord? With a clear
conscience, one should not be too worried about being condemned by the Lord or
being punished for our failings.
At least in the case of
Hezekiah, we can understand his fears, since the idea of resurrection was in
its embryonic theological development during his time. The Israelites
believed that upon death, they would be banished to live a shadowy existence,
be cut off from God and from others. Death in Sheol was a place of
non-communication. That being the concept of death, we can appreciate his
fear even if he had lived a righteous life.
But what about us? What reasons do we have to
fear death and judgement if we had lived a good life? The truth is that we
might fall into legalism like the scribes and Pharisees in today’s
gospel. They were so fearful of breaking the laws that they were meticulously
obsessed with fulfilling the laws to its letter. Their idea of God was
that unless you lived the laws perfectly, God would punish us
accordingly. Salvation was through the laws and the merits earned.
When we are legalistic,
we become obsessed with the exact fulfillment of the laws of the Church and the
gospel. We
become overly anxious, scrupulous and always never happy with ourselves.
We suffer from SOCD, that is, spiritual obsessive compulsive disorder! We are
nervous about whether we have followed exactly the rubrics for the celebration
of the sacraments, especially Confession, or in our recitation of liturgical
and devotional prayers, etc. So even if we have fulfilled the laws, we are
never at peace because we would then say to ourselves that we did not do them
perfectly. Or we might say to ourselves that we did not give ourselves
fully to whatever we did in prayer, work or in services. The fact remains
that whatever we do in word or deed, we can never give full attention, and our
intentions are never always pure and unconditional.
As a consequence, we feel
that when we meet God at judgment, He will punish us and take into account all
our shortcomings and sins, not only of commission but omission. He will
examine us according to the strict juridical demands of the laws and mete out
to us the necessary penalty that will cause us to suffer in hell or purgatory.
With such a concept of an avenging God, we can never love ourselves or Him, for
we live in fear of Him and we do everything more to escape punishment rather
than out of love. This was the religious mentality of the Jews that Jesus
condemned in the gospel. They placed the observance of the laws before
mercy and sacrifice. It was necessary for Jesus to remind them that “if
you had understood the meaning of the words: What I want is mercy, not
sacrifice, you would not have condemned the blameless.” Because if we
think that God condemns us, we will end up condemning ourselves as well, and
unable to forgive ourselves for our mistakes and negligence. So long as
we cannot forgive ourselves, we will hinder God’s love from reaching out to us.
As Christians we should
have no reason to be fearful of death or of meeting the Lord at the end of our
lives. We should
be looking forward to meet the Lord with joy, like St Paul. The gospel reminds
us that Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath. He does not judge us by the laws. He
Himself defended His disciples when they broke the Sabbath laws out of need and
hunger. The Lord understands our struggles. He does not condemn
us. He wants to love us and we to love Him. He is our advocate
before the Father whenever we sin. He comes to take away our sins by
assuring us of His Father’s love and mercy.
Furthermore, we know that death
is not a total loss of communication. We believe in the immortality
of the soul and the communion of saints. We also believe in the
resurrection of the body on the last day so that our communion with each other
is perfected. So death is not the end of life or the cessation of union.
On the contrary, in spirit, we are now more deeply in union with each other in
Christ. So long as life and love continue, communication is present.
Finally, regardless of
how many more days or years we are left with, does it mean then we do nothing;
that we continue to live our sinful life since all will be forgiven when we
die? This would be presumptuous. If we are sincere about the love of God
and His mercy, we must cooperate with His grace.
We must not take Him for
granted because a day will come when we have to give an account of
ourselves. Not that God will punish us but our sins will separate us from
Him. We will be too proud to ask for forgiveness, unlike Hezekiah who
“shed many tears” imploring the Lord for mercy. We would be so deep
in sin that we cannot feel for Him or desire Him. Even now, when we are
living in sin, we find ourselves unable to feel His presence and love even when
we try to pray. In time to come, we give up praying all together and
allow sin to consume us till we rot in misery in the consequences of our
actions. But if we now seek to deepen our life with Him, we will be able
to come to Him with confidence in His mercy when we die, knowing that in our
imperfections, He will still accept us and love us.
WRITTEN BY THE MOST REV WILLIAM GOH
ARCHBISHOP OF SINGAPORE
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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