Momento Mori (Lent VI)

Vanity, by Philippe de Champaigne, 1602-1674

By Bp. Joseph Boyd (Ancient  Church of the West) 

Readings: Samuel 13:1-3, Psalms 23, Ephesians 5:8-14, and the Gospel of St. John 9:1-41

All around the world we continue to face major challenges as lockdowns and travel restrictions devastate many countries. We have already seen the difficulties of dealing with this pandemic in Asia, as many of us, our friends and loved ones, have lost residency status, visas and financial livelihoods. Many of our poorer parishes in India, Thailand and the Philippines have had trouble making ends meet as poverty compounds through quarantine. As the first world has begun to worry about finances, many are far less generous to our brothers and sisters in the third world. After a year of "new normal," many of us fail to see how we can truly return to normal, even as vaccines are now rolling out. We pray that we will have wisdom to deal with the moral and ethical questions of these next months, creatively help our struggling congregations in poor countries, reject vaccines that were based on the tragedy of abortion (such as the Johnson & Johnson Vaccine, which unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, was based on aborted cell cultivation), and effectively deal with the continued problem of meeting for worship while maintaining social distancing measures, taking the sacraments together, and restoring accountability for our old besetting sins and new acquired bad habits. 

During such tumultuous times as these, with fear and panic crippling our normal thoughtfulness and love for one another, it is easy to despair and think that God has abandoned us to our own resources. However, what we face is very similar to the insecurity of ancient times, when such mortality rates would hardly have seemed out of place from everyday deaths of the aged and the infirm. We live in uniquely privileged times, and we take many of the advantages without even thinking about how different we are from our ancestors. We live to much older ages than any generation before us, and many work their whole lives so that they can spend their old age in comfort and security. This virus upends all those expectations, and that is one of the reasons that it is so hard to process. We hate change, we hate to have our expectations defeated, and we want to be in control of our lives and our outcomes. For many generations since WWII, we have believed a false narrative that we can control these things with education and finances, not realizing that both of these things are dependent upon our health and safety from disease. Now we are humbled before the might of nature, realizing how small and truly insignificant we are, and this makes us uncomfortable and afraid. 

In the ancient Church, the aspiration to martyrdom for Christ was full of the expectation of His immediate return. This is why the great fathers of the faith earnestly contended for the Gospel and refused to bow the knee to idols, knowing that, even if they died temporarily, the Lord would quickly return in the sky, and they would be brought back to rule and reign with Him. The expectation of seeing Christ and being with Him in the New Kingdom expunged all fear and terror, and made them boldly go into the mouths of lions. So brave were they that Roman soldiers and Stoics were shaken, because these “untrained and un-philosophical peasants” would practice more circumspection, loyalty and bravery than even the finest of Rome’s Praetorian Guard. Their “martyrdom”, or “witness”, stood for all to see and revere. 

In the Middle Ages, as persecutions subsided and the church was flooded with “fair-weather friends” who converted for political purposes, a practice of meditation upon death became commonplace amongst monastics, because they found that, if they thought about their death before it happened, it imbued their whole lives with meaning and purpose. It clarified what was important and not important. Interestingly enough, this same kind of meditation also occurred in many of monastic traditions around the world, called Maranassati Sutta by Buddha, and so we know that it is a common denominator in all of human experience - death clarifies life. The command “Momento Mori” (Remember Your Death) is found inscribed in many graveyards and in church buildings devoted to funerary service. In the classic Marian prayer, the “Hail Mary” is said, and ended with “Pray for us... in the hour of our death.” The memory of death, as frightening as it is for many, allows us to prepare for life. Preparation is key. 

For a Christian, who fully embraces the reality of the Resurrection, death should not be terrifying. It is a place-marker and a point of transformation. It should not be sought or rashly thought of as preferable, but it is filled with the promises of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, who has promised to be with us everywhere and through everything. We can rest, bravely face our fates in whatever comes, and know that God will be glorified, because death is not the end and God is on our side. He loves us and is with us through all of our pain and suffering. As retired Ukrainian Archbishop Lazar Puhalo says, “Christ’s incarnation proves that God loves us so much that He came to suffer with us, and to share in all of our burdens, so that, by grace, we may enter into the reality of His eternal life.” (Sermon on the Mystery of the Incarnation) 

Today, in the readings from Scripture, we have several stories that seem to be disconnected. The story in Samuel 13:1-3 talks about the anointing of David to be king of Israel, and the process that Samuel had to go through in order to discern who God saw him to be. In the Septuagint, it is very interesting that it reaffirms the saying “Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart” in verse 7 with a clarification in verse 12; “Now he was ruddy, bright-eyed, and good looking to the Lord.” It was not that he was good looking to man, but that his virtue and love shone brightly and God could see it. It goes on and says, “Arise, anoint David, for he is virtuous.” The Scripture continues, “And Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him, and the Spirit of the Lord was upon him from that day forward.” What we see here is that God anoints with His Spirit that which He has already prepared. Preparation is key. 

Then in Psalms 23, the famous funeral chapter, which reaffirms us of Christ’s abiding love for us and His role as shepherd in our lives, we see that all of the leading and prodding that He does guides us into those places of rest and comfort that He has prepared for us. His work is what we see in our lives. While we have free will to a limited extent, all of those roadblocks and proddings that we receive are from God, and there is an intricate interplay of God’s will being revealed and our responses to it. God knows what is best for us and has provided for us through all our difficulty and adversity. Again, His preparation is key. 

Then the readings take us to St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (5:8-14), in which he exhorts us to strive to follow God. “Walk as children of the Light...Have no fellowship with darkness...awake you who sleep! Arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light! Walk circumspectly, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” And, again, we see our preparation, God’s wonderful provision, and the expectation of the Resurrection. In this promise, we are enabled to walk contrary to the expectations of this dark age, and turn our eyes to Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, the bestower of light. This is Christ’s preparation for us, the Resurrection, the many mansions, the eternal home that we have with Him. 

Then, in the Gospel reading (John 9:1-41) we are presented with a very interesting and tricky dichotomy. In the story of Christ healing the eyes of the blind man, several themes arise. We are presented with the Pharisees, who are skeptics, blamers, and unwilling to see Christ as anything special. They contrast Christ with Moses. They say, “We know that God spoke to Moses, but this fellow? We do not even know where he is from!” They frame their dismissal of Christ in fame and cultural credentials for validity. We also see the brilliant rebuke of the blind man. He says, “It is wonderful that you do not know where Jesus is from.” Pointing out that Christ could not be a sinner or possessed of devils he says, “God does not listen to sinners, much less heal people through them.” And his final blow, “If this man were not from God, he couldn’t do the things that he does. You can do nothing without God.” All of these things turn the self-righteousness of the Pharisees on their head, showing that Christ was, indeed, very special, and that His message needed to be heard. Instead of listening to him, however, the Pharisees replied, “You were born in sin, why are you teaching us?” This implied that the man’s blindness was a judgement from God for his sin or his parent’s sin, completely ignoring the brokenness of the world or the glory of God. They dismissed him because he was a “sinner” and they felt superior to him, completely dismissing his argument. 

Jesus went and found the man, after this ordeal was finished, and told him, “I am He, do you believe?” The seeing man responded, without any hesitation, “Lord, I believe!” He had seen the Light, and that light had implanted in him a confidence in Christ. The ground was prepared for that seed from the years of darkness and blindness in which that man had lived. As soon as he saw the Light and heard the word, his heart received in true faith, completely open to God and good ground for conversion. This was the reason for his suffering. This was the point, the meaning of his sickness, not to make him afraid or alienate him, but to accomplish a deep and meaningful conversion in his life, making him a “Child of the Light” that Paul talks about in Ephesians. And the same Messiah who granted sight to the blind will raise us up again from the dead. 

“For judgment I have come into the world,” Christ goes on to say, “that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be blind.” (v. 39) When judgement, adversity, calamity comes into the world. The point is not our suffering, but the vital work that this suffering accomplishes to transform us into those who can “see.” It is the “refiner’s fire” that is so often mentioned in Scripture. It strips away the dross and makes us brighter, more internally united, more whole, and more willing to submit to one another in mutual love and accountability. It brakes us so that we can be better and more fit for the Master’s purposes, which is to make us glorified vessels of His mercy, Gold, Silver, and Bronze, and not the lesser, unrefined materials of wood, hay and stubble. 

The story does not end here, because the offended Pharisees had overheard the conversation. They asked, “Are we blind, too?” (v. 41) Jesus responds in a classic way, overturning all of the religious convictions and social conventions of His day. He says, “If you were blind, you would have no sin: but now you say, ‘we see.’ Therefore, your sin remains.” 

Jesus rejects the idea that the man’s blindness was a judgment, He shows the false assumption that the Pharisees are without sin, and He shows them that they cannot really see. They have refused to allow the trials and sufferings of their lives to teach them anything, instead, they justify themselves and prop themselves up as superior to others. They reject the witness of others because they think that they have the only truth and are completely unwilling to humble themselves and learn from anyone else. Those who have this attitude experience suffering as alienation from God, because their only definition of God’s presence is success and comfort. Christ shows that these assumptions are wrong, that God is with us and uses our suffering just as much as our comfort, and that these things prepare us to receive greater grace and deeper conversion. Again, in understanding suffering, understanding it as preparation is key. Only in receiving our suffering and uncertainty as from God, so that we may cry out to Him “all the more,” can our eyes be opened and can we fully become “the Children of Light.” 

As we continue to face the challenges of this virus and to feel the deep implications of our mortality, let us turn our eyes to Christ, the Great Physician, Who is the only one who can save our souls. Let us cry out to Him for mercy, as the blind man, and let us affirm our faith in Him - “Lord, I believe” - as He continues to mold us through suffering and prepare us for the glory of His unending Kingdom to Come. Do not be afraid, brothers and sisters. God is with us. This is the Hope of the Gospel!