20220405 YOU WILL DIE IN YOUR SINS
05 April, 2022, Tuesday, 5th Week of Lent
First reading | Numbers 21:4-9 © |
If anyone was bitten by a serpent, he looked up at the bronze serpent and lived
The Israelites left Mount Hor by the road to the Sea of Suph, to skirt the land of Edom. On the way the people lost patience. They spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt to die in this wilderness? For there is neither bread nor water here; we are sick of this unsatisfying food.’
At this God sent fiery serpents among the people; their bite brought death to many in Israel. The people came and said to Moses, ‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Intercede for us with the Lord to save us from these serpents.’ Moses interceded for the people, and the Lord answered him, ‘Make a fiery serpent and put it on a standard. If anyone is bitten and looks at it, he shall live.’ So Moses fashioned a bronze serpent which he put on a standard, and if anyone was bitten by a serpent, he looked at the bronze serpent and lived.
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 101(102):2-3,16-21 © |
O Lord, listen to my prayer and let my cry for help reach you.
O Lord, listen to my prayer
and let my cry for help reach you.
Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress.
Turn your ear towards me
and answer me quickly when I call.
O Lord, listen to my prayer and let my cry for help reach you.
The nations shall fear the name of the Lord
and all the earth’s kings your glory,
when the Lord shall build up Zion again
and appear in all his glory.
Then he will turn to the prayers of the helpless;
he will not despise their prayers.
O Lord, listen to my prayer and let my cry for help reach you.
Let this be written for ages to come
that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord;
for the Lord leaned down from his sanctuary on high.
He looked down from heaven to the earth
that he might hear the groans of the prisoners
and free those condemned to die.
O Lord, listen to my prayer and let my cry for help reach you.
Gospel Acclamation | Jn8:12 |
Praise to you, O Christ, king of eternal glory!
I am the light of the world, says the Lord;
whoever follows me will have the light of life.
Praise to you, O Christ, king of eternal glory!
Or: |
Praise to you, O Christ, king of eternal glory!
The seed is the word of God, Christ the sower;
whoever finds this seed will remain for ever.
Praise to you, O Christ, king of eternal glory!
Gospel | John 8:21-30 © |
When you have lifted up the Son of Man then you will know that I am He
Jesus said to the Pharisees:
‘I am going away;
you will look for me
and you will die in your sin.
Where I am going, you cannot come.’
The Jews said to one another, ‘Will he kill himself? Is that what he means by saying, “Where I am going, you cannot come”?’ Jesus went on:
‘You are from below; I am from above.
You are of this world; I am not of this world.
I have told you already:
You will die in your sins.
Yes, if you do not believe that I am He,
you will die in your sins.’
So they said to him, ‘Who are you?’ Jesus answered:
‘What I have told you from the outset.
About you I have much to say
and much to condemn;
but the one who sent me is truthful,
and what I have learnt from him
I declare to the world.’
They failed to understand that he was talking to them about the Father. So Jesus said:
‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man,
then you will know that I am He
and that I do nothing of myself:
what the Father has taught me is what I preach;
he who sent me is with me,
and has not left me to myself,
for I always do what pleases him.’
As he was saying this, many came to believe in him.
YOU WILL DIE IN YOUR SINS
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ NUMBERS 21:4-9; PS 102:2-3,16-21; JOHN 8:21-30]
Three times, the Lord warned the Jews, “You will die in your sins!” Indeed, St Paul tells us that the wages of sin is death. Why does sin cause death to us, not just physical death but emotional and spiritual death? When we sin, we hurt ourselves and we hurt others. To sin means to miss the mark. We fail to become what the Lord meant us to be, namely, that we are sons and daughters of God. The more we live in sin, the more miserable our lives become. Sin works against life and love.
The greatest of all sins is the sin of pride. It is the foundational sin of Adam and Eve, the fallen angels and today’s secularism and humanism. When we are proud, we refuse to acknowledge God and make ourselves gods of others. We engage in self-idolatry, the worship of oneself. The Jews refused to accept Jesus because of pride. They did not want to accept Jesus as the Messiah but instead clung to their old ways of worshipping God. Jesus said, “Yes, if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” They were not ready to accept Jesus in spite of what Jesus had told them. “So they said to him, ‘Who are you?’ Jesus answered: ‘What I have told you from the outset. About you I have much to say and much to condemn; but the one who sent me is truthful, and what I have learnt from him I declare to the world.'”
The Israelites too were proud of themselves. They refused to acknowledge the ways of God. They thought they knew better. They complained that God took them the long way to reach the Promised Land, going by the way of Mount Hor by the road to the Sea of Suph, skirting the land of Edom. “On the way the people lost patience. They spoke against God and against Moses.” They thought they knew better. But God had His plans for them. He needed to build them up as a people and to strengthen their military might before they could conquer Canaan and the tribes that lived there. But they did not have the foresight to see the wisdom of God’s plan. Instead, they complained, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to die in this wilderness?”
Not only were they proud, but they were ungrateful to God for delivering them from the slavery of the Egyptians. Their ingratitude showed in their complaint about the food. “For there is neither bread nor water here; we are sick of this unsatisfying food.” When they had no water, God gave them water from the rock. When they had no bread, God gave them manna from heaven. When they had no meat, God sent them the birds. They did not have to work for their food but instead of being thankful, they were never satisfied.
We too are like them, are consumed with pride, thinking we know best and we do not need God because we can do everything without Him. We fail to realize how small and insignificant in the world we are when we consider the history of humanity and the enormous world and universe; yet we think so highly of ourselves. As a result, we are never satisfied with what we have. We are not grateful to God for our blessings, our health, job, salary, house, food, etc. We are always grumbling that we do not have enough, no matter how much the Lord gives to us. We are unhappy and envious of others.
Pride and greed will lead us to other sins, like dishonesty, stealing, cheating and even killing. We get involved in all sorts of crime, gambling, and commit criminal breach of trust. The more we sin, the more sinful we become. One sin leads to another sin because the punishment for iniquity, as St Augustine says, is iniquity. When we sin, we sin even more because we are blinded by our sins and, consumed by them, we commit more and more sins under their bondage. Our hearts become more hardened to the truth and God.
When that happens, we have become slaves of sin. We will destroy ourselves and even our loved ones. We have been “hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” (Heb 4:13) As a consequence, we find no rest. As it is said “‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.’ Now who were they who heard and yet were rebellious? Was it not all those who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses? ‘But with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who were disobedient?” (Heb 3:15-18) Instead of looking for a solution to their challenges, they found scapegoats in Moses and in God.
Indeed, when we sin, we suffer the consequences of our sins. This is the symbol of the serpent biting them to death. Our sins cause us to be miserable. We face bankruptcy because of greed. We go to jail because we cheated. Our families are broken because we have been unfaithful to our spouse. Our children have abandoned us because we did not treat them well. Our friends have left us because we are self-centred. We lost our job because we have been lazy and irresponsible.
How, then, can we overcome our sins? The truth is that we cannot overcome our tendency to sin no matter how much we try because we are born sinners. “Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.” (Ps 51:5) St Paul wrote, “But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.” (Rom 7:17-20) Sin lives in us and that is the reason we cannot overcome sin.
The only way to overcome our sins is to believe in Jesus as our Saviour. Jesus said, “If you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” Faith in Jesus as the Son of God is the key to overcoming our sins. Unless we believe that Jesus is from the Father, we will not understand the depth of His love for us. The death of Jesus on the cross reveals to us His Father’s unconditional love and mercy. The resurrection of Jesus vindicates the truth of what He teaches and shows the power of God over sin and death.
For this reason, we need to contemplate on Jesus who was lifted up at His passion, death and resurrection. “Jesus said: ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He and that I do nothing of myself: what the Father has taught me is what I preach; he who sent me is with me, and has not left me to myself, for I always do what pleases him’. As he was saying this, many came to believe in him.” The cross of Jesus is the anti-type of the serpent raised up on the pole for the people to look at in order to find healing from the bites of the snakes. So too we are called upon to look at the cross, the crucified Christ for healing. In contemplating on the cross, we will appreciate deeper the love of God. And it is because of His love for us, that we change. Our transformation is the consequence of His love for us. By looking at the serpent, the people came to reflect on their sinful ways. So too by contemplating on the crucified Christ, we become more conscious of our sins as well. We come to realize that our sins caused the Lord to die for us. When we think of God’s love and mercy and our ingratitude, we will repent out of love.
On this 5th Week of Lent, we are called to contemplate more and more on the crucified Christ. From this week onwards, traditionally the crosses and statues of the church are veiled with a purple cloth to remind us that our sins block the presence of God in our lives. The absence of God is felt more strongly when the images are covered. At the same time, the cloth covering the crucifix and statues of our Lord, hides the glory of our Lord in His passion and even His humanity because He was scourged, stripped and tortured like a worm and not a man. So long our sins are with us, we hide the glory of God from shining in our lives. Without God’s glory, the statues of saints too cannot be seen.
Most of all, the covering of the crosses of our Lord invites us to a mystical contemplation of His passion. We must bring the image of the Lord into our hearts and minds and not just look at it as an ornament for display. We must bear the image of our crucified Lord in our hearts. Contemplating on His passion, we will truly see Him as the Crucified One when the cross is unveiled. We will also share in the glory of the saints on Easter Vigil when the cloth covering them would also be unveiled, for Christ the Risen Lord, the Light of the World gives us a share in His resurrection.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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